Focal Social Actors and Tacit Coordination

Abstract

Tacit coordination is a fundamental task for interdependent social actors. Everyday examples include negotiating rush hour traffic, working collaboratively on a group project, conversing smoothly, and meeting friends for lunch. Previous research (Schelling, 1960; Mehta, Starmer & Sugden, 1994) has focused extensively on differences between behavioral options that aid in small group coordination. Highly salient options are referred to as structural focal points, and are popular choices for actors. The current work presents a new type of focal point based on differences between social actors in a coordination problem. The focal social actor effect is hypothesized to occur when one group member is more salient than others, and actors correspond to behavioral options in a clear way. Three Experiments explored and ultimately supported this hypothesis. In Experiment 1, social information about group members was manipulated such that one group member was unique. Furthermore, players were identified by color. In a subsequent coordination game, players were more likely to select an option sharing an identifying color with the unique group member than an option corresponding to a common player. In Experiment 2, actors and options corresponded through slight payoff differences between group members across different behavioral options. Once again, players were more likely to select the option corresponding to the unique player. In Experiment 3, uniqueness was manipulated orthogonally to intragroup status by virtue of bogus feedback on a leadership questionnaire. The focal social actor served as a coordination cue, as players were more likely to select the option corresponding to the unique player. The focal social actor cue was found to be effective even in the presence of the previously established status cue for coordination (de Kwaadsteniet & van Dijk, 2010). Focal social actors serve as strong coordination aids for small groups, and may help explain portions of previously published tacit coordination findings.