Bring up Choices – How an Economist Might See Them

3 July, 20217 August, 2021 / Manuel Michael Lepage Lévesque / Leave a comment

One of my favourite activities is to sit down next to a window, at a coffee shop, on a busy street, and watch people go about their daily lives. Sometimes you will capture interesting scenes such as a couple arguing or an older woman being ecstatic while on the phone, or perhaps two strangers giving each other flirting stares. I like to imagine what is going on in their minds or their lives at that moment. Maybe the couple is arguing about how one of them forgot the other’s birthday: trust me, it’s bad news if you do! Perhaps, the person receiving the phone call just got the news that she will be a grandmother for the first time. Maybe the strangers are not strangers after all. Perhaps, they just finished going on their second date and agreed to make their relationship official.

I have always been interested in human behaviours, and I have always wanted to understand them – from a distance. I am not too keen on being in large crowds or being surrounded by a lot of people. I like being in my little bubble and ignored for the most part. In fact, in recent times, I have been much more curious about the choices we make. Why do some people buy Apple products rather than Samsung products? Why do we have a particular “type” of people we prefer to date? How do we decide which job to apply to? Because I like to observe people from a distance, like a fly on a wall, I have a penchant for theoretical things rather than applied things: I like to think, imagine, and ponder.

Now, if I said: I want to go to College and study human behaviours and the choices we make. What would you suggest? Psychology? Sociology? Commerce/business? Neuroscience? Mathematics? What about Economics? Would you have suggested Economics? Most would not. For some reason, when I tell people that I study Economics, they ask me about the current hot stocks to buy, what do I think about the housing market, or what policies the government should adopt to boost our economy. I typically answer: “Sorry – I have no idea, and I don’t really care all that much, to be honest.” I am a theoretical Game Theorist and Market Designer. And, this is the way I see the world around me.

Each person in a given situation of interest is called a player or agent. Each player has choices they can make. They are sometimes referred to as actions, strategies, or alternatives. Each choice results in a level of satisfaction which is called a payoff. For example, choosing an apple product over a Samsung product must imply that somehow, you preferred the apple product at that moment. Then, we could say that buying the apple product was more satisfying and thus provided you with a higher payoff. There are different approaches to state that you prefer, say, Mac computers over Alienware computers. One of them is revealed preferences: since I saw you buy a Mac computer, whereas the only other option was Alienware computers, then you revealed to me, from your choice, that you preferred Mac computers. Another is the classical axioms of consumer preference, which would require us to dive deep into set theory. These axioms ensure that every player makes rational choices and that these choices are “well-defined.” Amongst these axioms, there is transitivity. A transitive preference is: if I prefer A to B and I prefer B to C, then it must be that I prefer A to C.

I have come across many who have told me: “economics is faulty because humans are not rational beings, but you assume that they are.” I typically respond by paraphrasing one of my undergraduate professors from Bishop’s University:

“In economics, we say that every person is rational because they make the best feasible choice in the given situation they find themselves in.”

Recall a time where someone accused you of being irrational. That individual was most likely comparing your current state to your “normal” state. That is, the difference in your behaviour is what made them believe that you were being irrational. However, in economics, we look at every infinitesimal timestamp, as well as their environment. These elements are used to determine what actions are feasible to you. Given these feasible actions, your choice of action is rational. Hence, agents behave ‘rationally.’ Immediately, you will notice that an economist’s definition of rationality is different from the everyday use of the word ‘rational.’ So, does this mean that classical preferences and revealed preferences explain every choice we make? At this moment in time: no. The concept of preferences is highly theoretical, and thus we must conduct experiments to show that they are correct. Mathematically, they make sense, but experimentally, sometimes things do not go according to plan. So, when experiments do not match the theory, what does one do? We reevaluate the hypothesis. In fact, we say that classical preferences and revealed preferences hold under certain assumptions.

So, we have players, strategies, preferences and payoffs, and rational agents. These are the building blocks I use. The next step is to ask myself: why would a player want to make a certain choice? That is, I seek the incentives of each player and determine what kind of strategies I am dealing with. If choice A gives you a higher payoff than choice B, then would it not be better for you to choose A? Would A not strictly dominate choice B? By doing so, it is sometimes possible to conjecture a reasonable outcome or solution. The only problem is that our choices are usually conditional on something else. In Game Theory, choices are typically conditional on other players’ choices. Then, we would specify that your choice A strictly dominates your choice B, if its payoff is higher, conditional on the other players’ choices. This theory works very well if everyone knows everyone’s set of actions.

On the other hand, it is much more realistic to consider the fact that we do not know with certainty what another person will do. Think about the game rock-paper-scissors. Do you know for sure what the other person will choose? No. However, you can have a belief of what they will do. You may tell yourself: “Oh, this person always chooses paper. So I will go with scissors.” Since there is a probability that they will not choose paper, it is only a belief, never a fact. Also, economists will consider your beliefs to be updatable. That is, your belief of the other person’s choice may change over time. In fact, if you did choose scissors, but the other person chose rock, then you just lost that round. What if they said “best of three.” Then you go again and repeat the game. But this time, you may think that because you just played scissors, they will think “surely they (you) wouldn’t go for scissors again!” and since you think they would say such a thing, then you decide to play scissors again. Suppose the other person knows you well and is sure that you will have this exact thinking process. Then they might play rock again. Now, what if you also knew them well? This back-and-forth reasoning is a defining feature in sequential games or repeated games.

Now that I have explained how I see the world around me, why is this useful? Game Theory explains a lot of our interactions in a basic way. It can explain why some couples argue differently than others. Sometimes a couple will use a tit-for-tat strategy where, if you say something hurtful to me, I will say something hurtful back to you and so on. Or it may be a tit-for-two-tats where, if you say something hurtful to me, I will ignore it. If you say something hurtful again, I will unleash hell onto you and bring up the time you forgot my birthday!

Alternatively, if you just turned 18, unexpectedly got pregnant, and you want to phone your mother to tell her, but she doesn’t know. Then perhaps you will adopt a specific strategy (sequence of actions) that will minimize the possibility of an adverse reaction from your mother. For instance, you may simultaneously announce your pregnancy and the marriage proposal from your romantic partner, who wishes to bring up the child with you. Your mother might not be as upset as if you had only announced the pregnancy. Thanks to your strategy, your mom is now compassionate and understanding, which makes everyone better off. To you, dear readers, what was a strategy that you recently used to minimize negative results?

I thank you infinitely for reading this post and if you would like to know more about the mysteries that surround us, please join my subscription list to keep up with my newest content. If you have any questions, please add them to the comment section and I’ll make sure to answer as soon as humanly possible.

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Bring Up Inflammation – How does it help

13 March, 202124 January, 2021 / Sylvie Blouin / Leave a comment

This summer something happened to me. As I was walking down a scenery path, something hit me. It happened so quickly that I felt as if I had been hit by a drop of burning oil that I could not manage to wipe away. Turns out that the culprit responsible for my pain was a bee, or a wasp, I never actually saw it so it could really be either one. What I was certain of, however, was the amount of pain I was experiencing. My body didn’t like it one slightly bit. I was also very confused, why did this insect decide to sting me? Why me? Why on my hand? I had to find answers. I actually had never been stung before. That was my very first encounter and I really didn’t know what to do.

My fiancé, having been stung many times before, was kind enough to inform me to raise my hand above my heart line until we reached home. Once there we would finally be able to put some ice to soothe the pain. Thinking about it now, I realize there were actually two actors at play in this scenario: pain and inflammation. They were interrelated. Inflammation caused pain and pain caused inflammation. It’s a truly terrific vicious cycle we got there. As previously mentioned in the Bring Up Pain article, pain is an adaptative mechanism that forces us to take an adequate action to free us from danger or from something the body interprets as potentially harmful. Where inflammation, also an adaptive mechanism, is there in contrast to provide an ideal environment for healing. One way it achieves this is by sending chemicals to the skin to increase sensitivity. This is the component responsible for the pain we feel when dealing with an inflamed body part. This is also why just the mere rubbing of our clothes after a sunburn is nearly unbearable. We call this increased sensitivity, allodynia. This is meant as a way to keep us from making the injury worse.

Apart from the aforementioned insect sting and sunburns, there are many more events that can lead to development of inflammation. Think about blemishes (pimples), injuries, headaches, arthritis, only to name a few. All of us at one point or another has, or definitely will, experience inflammation. There is absolutely no way around it. Well, not naturally at least. So I believe it’s essential to know how to recognize it. To do this, experts rely on a principle called the five cardinal signs of inflammation. Here, even though you might not know them in terms of their names, you know them at least from experience. So there is really no need to get scared!

The first sign, you guessed it, is pain. This is a necessary step, but still a dreadful step. This is the most obvious sign. It’s a major warning that signals us to pay attention to what’s actually going on. Without it, we would probably carry on with our days with absolutely no knowledge that something wrong is happening. This is also the main, if not only the only sign that transpires when we get a headache. Not that all headaches are signs of inflammation, it’s still a common source. We often get them when we don’t get enough oxygen to our brain cells. That could be caused from a bad sitting position, anxiety or even other health problems. You can discover that the only act of massaging the back of your neck can prove itself sufficient to relieve a headache. This happens because you are restoring blood flow by relaxing muscles that can compress the blood vessel walls. By putting a stop to the compression, enough blood can finally reach your neurons and deliver the oxygen it so dearly wants. Now that your brain cells get enough oxygen, there is no more need for inflammation and thus no need for pain.

The second sign is redness. This is a visual cue that you probably got to experience last time you got pimples. I’m talking about the one that hurts, the one that seems all perky and purulent. They are not only painful, they are also obviously visible by their coloration, red. If you want an additional example of this, think about sunburns. The lobster shade that you adopt after taking that extended sunbath is definitely a manifestation of inflammation. This should be taken as an unquestionable warning sign to get the Fick out of the sun, or pursue at your own peril. Taking in too much ultraviolet rays (mostly from the UVB type) will cause damage to your outer skin layer which will lead to inflammation. To avoid this, it’s really easy, use a proper sunscreen. This tiny bit of advice is so well known that I don’t even know why I bother repeating it here. We know that we should do it, but we don’t. Thus, I am here taking a pledge that I will, from now on, use sunscreen before lengthened sun exposure. Are you brave enough to join me?

Now if you fail to protect your skin after it has turned red, by running away from the sun to the shade, you will probably see soon enough blisters appearing. These are also called edema, which is the third cardinal sign. They contain something we call the inflammatory soup. That soup contains pain mediators, hormones, chemicals, and immune cells. They all contribute to different functions of inflammation, which some of them were mentioned earlier. The immune cells are the one responsible for protecting and defending the affected site against outside invaders, think about that venom from the insect bite I spoke of at the beginning. Some chemicals and hormones will be involved in stimulating cell reproduction (or multiplication). This will help heal wounds, like the skin you damage with the sunburn.

As a fourth sign, we get increased heat. This is not only really obvious when we touch ourselves after a sunburn, it is also really evident when we get a fever. That fever appears because the body, or more precisely your immune cells, perceived a widespread infection with an external agent. It could be from toxins, bacteria, parasites or viruses. By itself, a slight fever is often sufficient to kill living organisms like bacteria and parasites, but it’s completely useless against things that are not alive, like toxins and viruses. This is why fever that gets really intense is frequently associated with viral infection or toxin exposure. If we fail to care for the fever in these cases, it might cause us harm and this is why medical experts give us medication to quench the fever. In most cases, it actually targets inflammation directly which ends up also alleviating pain.

At last there is the loss of function that marks the final signs. This takes the longest to settle in but is, nonetheless, one of the major drivers for hospital visits. This is the less evident sign, as it bears somewhat of a very confusing title. Don’t worry this will be made very clear with examples. If you consider sunburn, the skin is so damaged that it can’t serve as the ultimate barrier anymore; therefore it has lost function. The hypersensitivity we experience is actually a testimonial to that. It is screaming to you that you have to keep all things away from it as it can no longer protect you by itself. Now if you consider a twisted ankle, the loss of function manifests itself through the near inability to walk over it. Your ankle which normally allows you to perform a walk, now pains you anytime you use it. This pain prevents you from performing the exact action it was meant to accomplish.

Now that you’re familiar with the five cardinal signs of inflammation, you may feel comforted in knowing that there exist some ways to help reduce the inflammation responses. Probably none of them will come as a surprise to you. When the inflammation is localized (only in your foot, for example), external (not in your airway or other internal organs) and acute (not a long-termed response), you can refer to the acronym RICE for treatment. “R” stands for rest. Reducing movement will prevent more stress from damaging the tissues further and help the healing process. “I” is for ice, placing ice indirectly (not straight on your skin) on the affected area will slow down the immune response. This will reduce swelling and pain. “C” corresponds to compression, by exerting pressure on the skin you are reducing the volume available for the inflammatory soup to occupy. This should lead to reduced swelling and increase mobility. Finally, the “E” refers to elevation, by lifting your body part slightly above your heart you are improving blood circulation in the area, leading perhaps in the loss of swelling and increased mobility as well.

If ever you are faced with a situation that is so bad that none of these helps, you may require medication. Ibuprofen, commonly known in North America as Advil, is an over-the-counter openly available anti-inflammatory medication that you may want to use or at least keep in your cabinet. If Ibuprofen fails to help, there are more anti-inflammatory medications, some of them even stronger, that require a prescription for procurement. In these cases, you will need to set a visit with your family physician or go through an emergency clinic to obtain the prescription.

Bring Up State of Panic – What makes us completely lose it

20 February, 20212 March, 2021 / Sylvie Blouin / Leave a comment

Waking up in March 2020, while the whole COVID-19 pandemic was unravelling, was no cup of tea. I was foolishly thinking at first that this pandemic wouldn’t change much in our daily lives. After a couple months, I got hit really hard by the observation that things couldn’t be further from the normal we used to know. I was forced to realize that this situation would remain so for a very long time. Given that I had to plan my wedding for summer 2021 and manage a website by myself which got launched no earlier than January 2020, I found this situation considerably troublesome. I won’t hide that this ordeal was a huge anxiety trigger for me. My biggest concern was especially the difficulty getting food. Before the pandemic started, I usually proceeded to order my groceries online, but now it was simply impossible to find an available delivery slot. My fiancée and I came to realize that we had no other choice than to walk down to the grocery store ourselves.

Yet our troubles were still far from over. Before we could even see the entrance of the grocery store, we were forced to notice the interminable lineup. I’ve heard that Montréal got hit pretty hard on that front compared to other regions in Quebec, and from what I experienced, I couldn’t agree more. The lineups were often so long that it would typically take us, my fiancé and I, well over an hour to simply get into the store. At the entrance, we were informed that only one of us could enter. So naturally I went in. I only started picking up the grocery to discover suddenly that most essentials were out of stock. Think about flour, sugar, eggs, canned foods, toilet papers and more. This was all so far out of my already established habits that it was sufficient enough to trigger an unbearable anxiety episode. It got so bad, at one point, that I had totally given up on even contemplating being productive. Watching Rom-Coms was my main distraction and was definitely what kept me going day after day. Months into the pandemic, with the help of my already busy fiancé, I decided to kick myself in the rear and do something about it.

The change of mindset was accompanied by summer and its relaxed restrictions. The possibility to see friends and family was more than welcome. Altogether, it was sufficient to have me overcome the anxiety which made me go through somewhat resembling more of a normal life. With perspective, I can say that my anxiety had manifested itself through avoidance and immobility, often referred as Freeze when we talk about this topic. There are, nonetheless, other possible reactions when faced with this same situation. The reactions can be so different that if we compare two of them, they may look completely contradictory. For example, some may become slobs, not doing much really, and some might develop a full-blown panic, hoarding everything on their paths. From a narrow point of view, we may interpret the latter reaction as selfish; however selfishness is not the driver behind this behaviour, fear is.

I feel confident enough to state that most of us have never experienced anything similar to this before. The closest thing that we may have experienced are natural disasters, accidents and attacks. All of those are very localized and in all of those situations we might expect help from outsiders. In the case of this pandemic, everyone was affected. We could only seek help from within us. A lot of people were quick to jump to the most horrific conclusion. Without toilet paper, what would we do? People got so afraid of missing essentials that they hoarded as much as was possible creating a massive shortage in grocery. This was perceived to be enough to validate their actions when in fact it was just the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, this shortage may have been avoided if people kept their buying habits unchanged and not going full rampage mode on the grocery aisles.

When we learn to understand the elements that contribute to the development of anxiety, we are in a better standing to act in a more moderate way. A way that doesn’t give in to a state of panic, or even fear for that matter. Truly enough, years ago, I thought that anxiety merely originated from being overwhelmed for a very long time. It was only from one of my university courses that I discovered that anxiety was truly more complex than this. I found out that much like pain, anxiety is an adaptive response that is meant to protect us. It was so finely tuned to detect potential threat, that even now in the absence of significant threat to our life, it still fires up. After much research on the topic, experts came to determine very specific factors that can trigger anxiety, which they summed to the term “NUTS”. NUTS is an acronym for Novelty, Unpredictability, Threat to ego and finally Sense of control. Typically, the more of these elements are present in a situation, the more anxiogenic (causing anxiety) this situation is said to be.

Let’s use this current pandemic as an example to illustrate these elements. The novelty aspect speaks for itself. We have never encountered anything even slightly similar in our life. The pandemic was the result of an exposure to a new strain of coronaviruses (Sars-Cov-2) that, even though was not very deadly, was efficiently spreading. When we came across this virus last spring, we knew barely anything about it. This brings me to the second aspect, unpredictability. We certainly didn’t know what the proper protocol was to apply when dealing with this, nor did we know how long this pandemic would last. We clearly didn’t know if we were in contact with it or not, viruses are invisible to eye scrutiny and this particular virus could even be spread by asymptomatic people. Also unknown was what our immune reaction would be if or when we came in contact with it. This last unpredictability was also appealing to the third aspect of anxiety, threat to ego (self). At last we have the sense of control aspect of anxiety which in this case is not very impressive. The only real control we have over the situation is our reaction, which we don’t have much control over to begin with.

With all that said, it’s not surprising that the anxiety triggered may have been intense for many of us. Sometime so intense that it would have translated into fear in some and panic in others. Panic is often accompanied with emotionally compromised decisions that are taken in the spur of the moment and wouldn’t be repeated in normal circumstances. This brings me back to the toilet paper hoarding problem I’ve mentioned earlier. This behaviour is not very popular in our everyday life, but in times of panic, it is widely common. People momentarily stop thinking about the wellbeing of others and primarily think about theirs. Considering that when anxious people are easy to jump to the worst-case possible scenario, rumours about possible toilet paper shortage is enough to instigate fear in people’s mind and react accordingly. Hoarding also proves to be a way for people to gain a sense of control over the situation.

In a couple of months, we will be marking our first year into this pandemic. Things have now begun to feel like a new reality. We still would prefer our life to go back to normal, but this new everyday existence has now become more bearable. Without the common state of panic that many experienced early on, people have currently resumed to think about the wellbeing of others. We can again observe acts of generosity and compassion to others. We have come a long way and, as long as we remember to look for the components of anxiety, we can learn to better cope with what life decides to throw at us.

To help you respond better when anxiety starts to hit, you need to wonder about NUTS and ask yourself how you can decrease novelty (e.g. Reading, be careful not to become obsessed, which you exacerbate anxiety), diminish unpredictability (e.g. plans for as many scenarios as you may be able to come up with), lessen the possible threat to ego (e.g. set measure to protect yourself, for COVID-19 pandemic, it could be distancing, wearing protective equipment or even staying home) and finally increasing control (e.g. learn ways to control what you can, could be trying to moderate emotion, maintaining relationship, fixing a work schedule, etc.).

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