The final two candidates in Donald Trump’s The Apprentice lead two teams through a task. Every year Donald asks the respective team members who should win. If the members answered objectively then each team should split in about the same proportion. Yet almost invariably the members of each team tell Donald that the candidate that led them in the last task is the best.
This is an interesting example of how easily our own identity can become tied to that of a group. We are the Red team, and the Red Team leader is the best. The Robber’s Cave may be more difficult to exit than Plato’s cave.
The failure of the teams to split in equal proportions also means that information fails to aggregate. The Donald learns nothing from the people who know the candidate the best, the employees.
Comments are open especially if you have other examples of the malleability of group identity and how it can distort information aggregation.
(To what extent) would the failure persist if the contestants had a larger stake in getting the right answer?
This happens all the time in recreational sports. Even in a co-ed soccer league consisting of old, slow, out-of-shape schlubs like me, agressive play and near-fights are common. “They” don’t play fair, “we’re” obviously much nicer/cooler/better. Sometimes the other team is short-handed and we’ll give them a player (and vice versa). The same dynamic still happens.
The solution, Alex, is to hire some chefs! The judges on Top Chef asked the same question in the same situation in the final episode. The ex-contestant, now sous-chefs from both teams unanimously favored the winner, Harold.
I think Keith above is right. People who want to work for Donald Trump are more likely to be yes-men and to value organizational loyalty than the average person.
Interestingly this appears to occur even when the final round employees had previously worked with the opposing team leader during previous tasks.
The real lesson for people who watch the show is that most of the competitors are idiots. I hold to the Misesian definition of “rational” and so I am very hesitant to call even foolish, counter-productive behavior “irrational” but these morons tempt me.
Since most everyone else has already nailed it, I thought I would bring up the question of why, on the last task, don’t team leaders ever fire some of the clods in the group. I watched the first one more than the others and I think that because Kwame did not fire Omarosa, it cost him the game. I know that those tasks just require bodies to get things done, but she was at least a negative 1.5 persons. Trump values the ability to work with all kinds of people, but he rails contestants when the can’t control them.
This is all about maximizing their own benifits.
I think the contestants are just signaling to potential employers and venture finaciers that they are loyal to those above them and good team players.
They are signaling to potential sex partners that they are not bad people and are worthy of some loving.
It would be different if this was a secret ballot.
Perhaps the larger body of fired contestant should be polled in a simple secret ballot. That would be inetesting. They could ask 1) Wwho do you like better, 2) who do you want to win, 3) who do you think will win.
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