How to Stop Arguing: Decoding Conflict with Game Theory

The Rules of Love, War, and Dinner Drama

“So let's hear it. Come on. Let's hear it. Let's hear it!”

"When I watch you eat, when I see you asleep, when I look at you lately, I just want to smash your face in."

"Come on, smash my face. Come on. You wanna smash my face?”

The War of the Roses

You know how it goes. One minute, you're casually chatting over dinner, and the next, you're driving your SUV over your partner’s Morgan. Or something metaphorically close to that. It's a universal phenomenon, these sudden shifts from peace to conflict.

But what if we could predict these sudden storms? What if there was a simple model behind all arguments? Arguments indeed often seem like rehearsed performances, where the actors are playing out the same script over and over. And there’s the key.

Pervasive Prisoners

Imagine planning a weekend getaway with your partner and a disagreement arises: the beach or the mountains? Suddenly, you're both adamantly defending your preferred choice and the conversation escalates.

Let’s pause here.

You have just found yourself enacting a game of prisoner's dilemma. (If you are familiar with the model, hang on, this is just the first step.) This game is played all over the world in many settings: in politics, between lovers and enemies, in the kindergarten, among wild animals, in cellular biology.¹ It’s a profoundly important game, so important, so absorbing, that we don’t even notice it.

Consider this: you're in a prison cell, and a friendly barter with a fellow inmate is your only source of variety. You have cigarettes, he has whiskey, setting up a potentially advantageous trade. The deal must happen during a guarded courtyard break. So you each hide your goods in a box and quickly exchange them.

You rush back to your cell, open the box with trembling hands, only to find... nothing. Nada. Zilch. You've been tricked! But a chuckle escapes your lips. You also passed on an empty box.

This is the classic "Prisoner's Dilemma," where both parties lose out. You'll be sure to give an empty box next time, avoiding the bigger loss of being the only one tricked. You just learned to distrust.

But let's rewind and imagine a different scene. What if you opened your box to find whiskey, while he enjoys your cigarettes? Suddenly, you've scored a trusted friend and prison life improves.

This elementary pattern of two equilibria shapes our political landscapes² as much as our private lives. And that’s where we’ll keep focusing here.

The Inner Chess

To internalize how the prisoner’s dilemma shapes our relationships, let’s borrow another concept: inner personas. Imagine having two distinct selves, Persona A and Persona B. Persona A would pass the cigarettes, while Persona B would pass an empty box.³

Persona A is our cooperative self, caring for both sides. It is imaginative, kind, supportive. It’s the one who optimistically passes the cigarettes and the alcohol.

Persona B is defensive and self-preserving, often escalating, becoming angry, throwing tantrums, and issuing threats to preserve its dignity and status. It throws itself into those endless hours of arguing and crying all night. But it's not a bad person. It's the basic effective strategy when you believe you stand eye to eye to a Persona B.

Watch this brilliant transition from two Personas A to Personas B:

Unfortunately, two B’s invariably remain in a suboptimal equilibrium, endlessly exchanging empty boxes, unable to collaborate.

These inner personas are not just an abstract notion. We actually, very literally, may have these different selves. In psychology and therapy, this view gave rise to the Internal Family Systems school, which facilitates an inner dialogue between such personas. Some people report having identified perhaps 30 personas after IFS sessions. I recently explored the fundamental similarities between AI models and inner personas in Models of Humans. And the more we treat these personas as real, the easier it becomes to recognize our seamless dance between them. Suddenly, we can be more than just passive passengers in our interactions. We can be conscious observers, adept at recognizing when we’re about to switch from the cooperative identity to the defensive one.

This model allows us view the prisoner’s dilemma not as a choice between two options, but a choice between two selves. Notice how powerful this reframing is. It shifts our perspective from a one-time decision to a continuous process of self-navigation. In the traditional setup of the prisoner's dilemma, you're faced with two choices - cooperate or defect. But when we overlay this with our inner personas, the dilemma morphs into a broader reflection on our inner selves and their interplay with our environment.

You're no longer just deciding whether to cooperate or compete. You're asking yourself: "Who do I choose to be in this moment?" Each choice feeds into your sense of self, your relationships, and ultimately, your life story.

In this light, the prisoner's dilemma becomes more than just a game theory problem. It's a mirror reflecting our internal struggle between collaboration and conflict, compassion and defensiveness, trust and skepticism. And the choice we make, whether it's to embody Persona A or Persona B, shapes not only our personal narrative but also our collective history.

The Cuban missile crisis was averted when both sides switched from aggressive Persona B to cooperative Persona A in the negotiation process. It is indeed this powerful and this simple: Two Personas B make wars, two Personas A make peace.⁴

Vaclav Havel, like Gandhi and Mandela, chose Persona A post-imprisonment, leading to significant peaceful revolutions in Central Europe, India, and South Africa.

Similarly, Japan's history showcases the power of persona switch. In the 16th century, Warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi, known for his aggression, was swayed by tea master Sen no Rikyu's serene Persona A, leading to a nationwide spread of the peaceful tea ceremony tradition and an enduring cultural shift.

But let's return down to earth, to our argument about the beach vs. the mountain. Now, what if instead of instead of arguing, you empathize, propose a compromise - that's Persona A. Can you recall moments in your life when you defused the tension? How did those scenarios play out?

And how about when you sensed your partner switching to their Persona B, defensive and unyielding? Did it become harder for you to hold on to your Persona A? Did you get swept up in the tension, switching to your Persona B in response?

I bet! It's a tricky dance, this oscillation between A and B, especially when navigating the grey zone – those ambiguous acts that could be seen as either benign or hostile. It's like playing a chess game where the pieces can transform at any moment, and every move has to be scanned for hidden threats. But now that we have the basic building blocks, we can dive deeper into these intricacies of the game of arguments.

An Anatomy of Arguments

Rule 1: Constructive resolution of an argument can only occur between two A's.

Two A’s can sit face to face, calmly and lovingly discuss their different views, and draw mutually reasonable conclusions. Conversely, there is no way to successfully, collaboratively resolve a disagreement with Persona B (with someone who is not looking to collaborate). So the key point to resolving disputes becomes keeping the conversation between Personas A.

Which is hard!

Rule 2: As soon as someone switches to Persona B, it's very difficult for the other to stay in A.

Did you just notice your partner shifting to Persona B, possibly becoming agitated or irritable? Here is the step-by-step playbook:

1. Reward yourself for noticing. You just avoided getting triggered into Persona B!

2. Stay in Persona A. Take the time you need to feel grounded there.

3. Try to help the other see that they switched to Persona B, and help them return to Persona A.

4. Do not engage Persona B other than letting them know your view of the situation (i.e. do not play the escalating competitive game)

5. Once you both agree that you are in Personas A, discuss the disagreement (the difference).

Two notes: This might take a few seconds, minutes, or even a day. You might both take a detour to Persona B between any of those steps. Especially if the Personas B hurt each other during the detour, the time to get to 4 will be long.⁵ But remember Rule 1: in the end, all differences will only be settled between two A’s. And for that, you both need to agree that staying in Personas A is good for both of you.

Second note: It's helpful to discuss the framework with the partner, so you can both start noticing Persona B entering the stage (in self and the other). This is essentially giving up an unfair information advantage (and agreeing to notice together when a Persona B appears, in whomever).

Rule 3: Beware of false positives.

Many disputes stem from mistakenly identifying Persona A behavior as Persona B, leading to a cycle of defensive reactions. Bang bang! But how to stop these unfortunate rapid fire misunderstandings?

First method: Give the poor soul the benefit of doubt. When uncertain, ask to confirm.

Second method: Practice the art of tail wagging. If you signal 10x a day that you are in Persona A, it will become how you are seen by default. False positive readings (of your own state) will drop. This is most easily done with smiles - the universal human signal of a reassuring, open heart. The fact that this is signalling should not deter you from doing it. On the contrary: One of the best ways to strengthen a relationship is to increase Persona A contacts throughout the day. With smiles, touches, nods. And no, it's not fake just because it's conscious!⁶

Rule 4: The grey zone is the craddle of conflict, the grey zone is the birthplace of social finesse.

Being able to discern whether you're dealing with Persona A or Persona B is a critical social skill. This is the game we’ve practiced for the last 100,000 years. The result of all that training is that we can tell a genuine smile from a fake smile at split second. Right?

Actually, the research is inconclusive; the art and science of smiles is complex. And that’s because the social game is an infinite, rather than a finite game. The rules are not fixed, there is no goal, no clear winner. Every strategy produces a counter strategy, as follows:

1. The art of smiling as a genuine Persona A signal

2. The art of deception (Persona B smiling as Persona A)

3. The art of detection (differentiating A from B)

4. The art of ambiguity (countering detection)

5. The art of suspicion (countering ambiguity)

6. The art of condemnation (countering suspicion)

And so we build the tower of Babel. The grey zone, where ambiguity reigns, is also the forge of EQ. Every act may be interpreted as either benign or hostile, leaving room for misinterpretation. Many tactics have evolved on this battleground.

Consider sarcasm. It often wraps a barbed comment (Persona B) in an outwardly harmless statement (Persona A). The intent here is to mock or convey contempt, and works most sweetly when it’s detected. Persona B is playing hide-and-seek, actually wanting to be found.

Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded." - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Passive-aggression, a close cousin of sarcasm, has a different aim: it expresses negative feelings indirectly while maintaining plausible deniability. For instance, if someone agrees to do something but then "forgets", it’s always possible to claim that Persona A forgot, rather than Persona B “forgot”. So Persona B is actively acting while denying it’s presence.

As we steer through our relationships, these are the currents we must learn to swim in. Not to become the masters of deception, but the masters of detection. And the helpful partners who can guide an accidental Persona B (both your own and your partner’s) back to square A.

Perhaps most importantly, this understanding allows us to realize that this dance is an integral part of our shared human narrative. It's a story told in countless variations across time and cultures, a story that shapes not just our personal relationships, but the key crossroads of our collective history and future.

So, the next time you find yourself in the heat of an argument, pause. Take a moment to step back and ask yourself: "Who do I want to be today?"

If you choose Persona A, you will not be doing a service only to yourself, but to all of us. The more people master this worthy game, the more we will collectively steer our path toward the collaborative equilibria. So go ahead, take a breath, find the strength, do it for all us!

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The Cheat Sheet

Rule 1: Constructive resolution of an argument can only occur between two A’s.

Rule 2: As soon as someone switches to Persona B, it's very difficult for the other to stay in A.

Rule 3: Beware of false positives.

Rule 4: The grey zone is the craddle of conflict, the grey zone is the birthplace of social finesse.

Skills to master:

1. Detecting a switch to Persona B (in self and the other).

2. Avoiding false positives in detecting Personas B (giving the benefit of doubt).

3. Staying grounded in Persona A.

4. Communicating as a Persona A with a Persona B.

5. Trusting that a Persona B can and will return to Persona A in time.

6. Frequently signalling your Persona A (tail wagging).

1. For example, we can view multicellular organisms as a continuous supremacy of the collaborative equilibrium over the competitive one, and cancer as the temporary toppling toward the competitive equilibrium. Overall, this principle's surprising prevalence across all levels of living systems can be understood as a fundamental struggle between individual and collective rationality. This was a central topic of my novel Flock Without Birds.

2. This whole post was sparked by Rusty Guinn’s talk at Epsilon Connect about the prisoner’s dilemma in politics. He observed that over the last two decades, the society moved from a stage where trust, dialogue, and compromise could shape decisions (moving from the competitive equilibrium to the collaborative equilibrium was at least sometimes possible), to an era where we're all just passing around empty boxes.

3. I am choosing such nondescript labels on purpose. Other labels could perhaps be more illuminating at first glance, but get more easily weaponized in a heated exchange.

4. And Persona A - Persona B negotiations make the bedrock of diplomacy, hostage negotiations, and conflict resolution.

5. One key to success is changing the master metric. Persona B wants to win - and does not care about time and cost. It can swordfight all night to make its point. But Persona A wants to return to the collaborative equilibrium. So it focuses on the shortest possible "time to return" and minimal cost (avoiding hurting each other in Personas B). It knows that the only real win is that you both return to a place where you can talk calmly and gently - not to a false, pretend connection that avoids all disagreement, but to discuss your differences in kindness.

6. If this feels hard, think hard why it’s hard.