Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of the development of focal point theory since the notion was introduced by Schelling in The Strategy of Conflict (1960). It first discusses Schelling’s introduction of the notion of focal point in the context of his bargaining-based analysis of the strategic aspects of the Cold War. Subsequently, it turns to the role played by focal points and salience in coordination games and the controversy over the rationality of focal point coordination. Then, it addresses the way focality and salience affect the way people reason, and discusses a number of empirical findings. Lastly, it offers a tentative illustration of the impact of salience on the rationale underlying the appointment of professional negotiators.
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Notes
- 1.
As Schelling did not markedly distinguish between focality and salience, I shall also not adhere here to the technical distinction between focality and salience mentioned in the introduction.
- 2.
Things may have been different during the early phase of the Cold War where the nuclear arsenals of each were perceived as vulnerable to a surprise ‘first strike’ attack. As this gave each side a very strong incentive to engage in such an attack at the slightest provocation, it created an inherent instability that troubled many strategic thinkers of the day. For Schelling’s views on this situation, see e.g. Schelling (1960: Part IV) and Ayson (2004: Ch. 2).
- 3.
The settlement that effectively ended the Korean War is often mentioned as a practical example that shares many features with this example (though there is also some reason to doubt that the Korean War is really the most suitable example of Schelling’s analysis of settlement through focal points [cf. Ayson 2004: 92]).
- 4.
If both sides apply this reasoning, they may of course also simply give their armies the order to proceed to the river and no further. Note also that in this example, the stream is the only feature that stands out. In situations with multiple outstanding features (i.e. multiple potential focal points), the story quickly becomes more complicated.
- 5.
To foreshadow the coordination problems discussed in the next section: two high school students who got separated after their Latin class in which Ovid was discussed, and who need to meet without the possibility of explicit communication (one of their smart phones is out of battery) may well decide to head for the mulberry tree in the school arboretum, whereas heading there would be completely senseless if one of the students from the Latin class seeks to get together with another student who opted to forgo the opportunity of receiving a classical education.
- 6.
These are the two main features of coordination problems we are concerned with here: both players are better off if they successfully coordinate their actions, but they cannot communicate with each other.
- 7.
Though, of course, they may themselves not be aware of the fact that that is what they are doing.
- 8.
This type of reasoning also plays an important role in the explanation of the occurrence and rationality of conventions (cf. Lewis 1969).
- 9.
For a detailed analysis of how stringent the knowledge/belief conditions need to be for such arguments to work, see Bicchieri (1993).
- 10.
- 11.
Cf. the Cold War uncertainty resulting from the ideologically opposed world views mentioned in Sect. 2.
- 12.
It is worth stressing that there is no way to do away with framing: it is a fact of human psychology that we always experience reality through a lens—that is how our brains work (and have to work in order for us to be able to process the mass of information our senses provide).
- 13.
It is worth noting that Hi-Lo games probably constitute the perfect scenario for team reasoning to occur. The lack of any payoff in case of failure to coordinate and the clear optimality of one of the coordination equilibria over the other both serve to make the players’ interdependence and their shared interest particularly salient. In games where there are factors that would make the individual interest of one or more of the players particularly salient, it is unlikely that salience would lead to the adoption of the ‘we-frame’.
- 14.
Another important step in the development of this theory is Camerer et al. (2004).
- 15.
The cognitive hierarchy model can be made more complex, for instance, by allowing different higher level players to have different beliefs about what lower level players are likely to do. Even in such cases, however, relatively mild empirical assumptions often lead to convergence of behavior among the higher level players.
- 16.
- 17.
For a small class of problems, this may not be problematic, however. Recall the example of the cruel billionaire. As the poor people in this game are doomed to fail if they play the game in its original representation, any other viable representation seems (at least weakly) preferable. Even if the opposite party fails to reconceptualize the game in the same way as they do, they have nothing to lose. Hence, if you find yourself in such a situation and the only two frames that come to mind are the original representation and Gauthier’s focal point representation, play the game in its focal point representation. This will only apply to a small class of cases, however; more often than not, the nothing-to-lose clause will not be fulfilled.
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van der Rijt, JW. (2019). The Quest for a Rational Explanation: An Overview of the Development of Focal Point Theory. In: Schuessler, R., van der Rijt, JW. (eds) Focal Points in Negotiation. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27901-1_2
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