Your Chair emails the entire Department. She is desperate because no-one has signed up to attend a boring but important weekend event. If you decide you can suffer the complaints of your spouse and children for bailing on them on a Saturday, should you hit “reply” or “reply all” on your response to the Chair?
A preliminary analysis indicates that “reply all” is the best option. First, you signal to the Department what a great public good provider you are, embellishing your image (and self-image?) as the Mahatma Gandhi-esque figure in the Department. People will look up to you and treat you with respect. Second, maybe you can guilt others into attending the event. You have made a sacrifice after all and maybe they will feel compelled to as well. So, all in all, “reply all” is looking pretty good as an optimal strategy.
But wait – you are signaling on multiple dimensions using one signal. “Reply all” signals you have gone through the rather than vulgar and manipulative analysis in the previous paragraph. A truly altruistic person would have signed up already without all the hot air you are blowing out of your email account. So, you’re probably not altruistic. In fact, you might be devious b’stard hoping to get out of serious public good provision in the future by investing one afternoon of work now. If people make this inference, hitting “reply all” is a mistake.
With all this agonizing, research is not getting done and the web is not getting surfed. Just randomize your choice whatever email arrives. Sometimes you’ll look good, sometimes not so good but people will be confused – maybe you are an altruistic after all as altruists do not email strategically. Then, you can cash in your reputation on a serious decision when it really matters not waste it on a trivial one.
(Hat Tip: Loosely based on Stephen Morris’s paper on Political Correctness)
Cheap Talk 
5 comments
Comments feed for this article
May 19, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Dan
Doesn’t hitting reply all imply that you have a low value of time? Isn’t it high status to avoid this? You also don’t want to be seen as the sucker who gets bullied into this.
May 19, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Bernardo Morais
Fantastic post. Right on target.
May 19, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Alfredo
i would say that the best strategy is always to choose eather “reply all” or “reply” in that way you build up a reputation that you always “reply all” or you don’t. However, if you randomize people will notice that sometimes you reply all and sometimes you don’t. This may give the impression that you respond strategically i.e you go ” through the rather than vulgar and manipulative analysis” explained in the first paragraph.
May 20, 2010 at 12:11 pm
sandeep
Strategic types should mimic altruists till they decide to milk their reputation.
If altruists are randomizing as they are too busy being altruistic to notice which button they press (my assumption), strategic types should randomize. But I like your theory too. That would work as long as their are some altruists who always press the same button.
Thanks
May 19, 2010 at 11:16 pm
Ryan
Sometimes it’s tough when deciding whether to publicly or privately support management decisions. It takes a little common sense of how it will come off to management (the chair) and to your peers. Another consideration is the timing on your reply. If you wait until the last minute to reply and no one else has hit “reply all” then it may be especially rude since you are the only one replying that way and you know it. I would be careful about any action that makes your peers look bad while at the same time making yourself look good. People catch on to that right away and even management is probably going to think poorly of it. If you really don’t know how to reply, you could always ask one of your peers that you trust whether they are going and how they plan on replying. These things can be tricky, but I think the key really is not to stand out 😛