The Dating Game

Abstract

I examine a game-theoretic model of heterosexual courtship. Players decide whether to make romantic advances towards members of the opposite sex, and receive payoffs that depends on the utility from a romantic match, and the costs of rejection and 'unwanted advances /harassment'. The game has three interesting Nash equilibria: the 'MI' equilibrium where males always play the 'initiator' role and females never do, the 'FI' equilibrium where females always play the initiator role and males never do, and a completely mixed equilibrium where both males and females play initiator probabilistically. The former two equilibria are evolutionary stable; the latter is not. I argue that the MI equilibrium is most likely to describe reality. On the other hand, I show that the FI equilibrium is a Pareto improvement upon the other equilibria if females are more 'selective' than males. I present evidence that this is indeed the case. The natural 'policy recommendation' then is a movement from a cultural norm where males predominantly initiate romantic advances, to one where females do. In particular, this would reduce the incidence of unwanted advances/sexual harassment.