Temper

On two independent occasions recently, I was asked to comment on colleagues with a strong temper.

(The request was, I have good reasons to believe, intended to be sarcastic; my own temper is as strong as anyone.)

"Of course we all have temper," one of my friends said, "Because there are things we feel serious about. After all, that's our character. If we are always soft and placid, we are no longer ourselves."

I smiled and nodded, "That may be true. Nonetheless, I think people are not really disturbed by our temper - but it touches their nerve if we burst out unexpectedly."

"What do you mean?"

"Yes, and it goes back to a very basic principle of game theory," I said, referring to the work of Oskar Morgenstern and John von Neumann. The idea is simple: The optimal way to tackle our adversary and optimize our own benefit in a one-to-one zero sum game is to do things at random (or, using the mixed-strategy according to the game theorist). However, when we face our ally (define as, pragmatically, when there is a synergistic benefit and cooperation is possible), we use a clear pattern of behaviour to communicate and convey our desire.

Go read http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2010/06/penalty.html and related posts.