Alliance Networks in Survivor
Survivor is a game show / social experiment where ~20 contestants are left on a remote island/region and forced to build a fire and shelter and find food (aside from one cup of rice allotted to each player daily). Initially, in the tribal phase, at the beginning of the game, is when contestants are divided into anywhere from two to four groups. In the second stage, the tribes merge. Approximately every three days (or one episode in the show), a contestant is voted out at the tribal council and eliminated from the game. Immunity from being cast off can be one for your tribe in part one and individually in part two of the game in challenges. In this blog post, I will explore the voting alliances in the show through the framework of networks.
In the voting in Survivor, the votes for who is going home are all written individually and read aloud after all votes are cast. The United States judicial system could learn a lesson from the show in this regard as doing the votes blindly prevents information cascades from occurring. They do not get to see who people are voting for and therefore don’t fall victim to the trap of the information cascade.
In many cases in the show, human subject behavior deviates from equilibrium predictions due to many factors. One may be socially inclined to vote someone off or keep them because of the nature of their personal relationship. Someone could not trust their alliance and due to this uncertainty, change their final decision. There are also hidden immunity idols that can be played after the votes are cast to protect oneself from being voted off. If you think someone in the other team’s alliance has one, this can heavily impact your decision and even can lead your alliance to split your votes between two members of the opposing alliance to ensure one of them goes home.
Interestingly, in the season I am watching at the moment (Season 29 San Juan Del Sur Blood vs. Water) there is an interesting aspect of having pairs of loved ones come on the show together. This feature creates weak bonds that are people in your alliance that you can’t fully trust and strong bonds between loved ones. In Survivor, you never know if someone in your alliance is going to turn on you and blindside you, but with your loved one, you can be sure they won’t be trying to vote you out. Below I modeled out how this network looks in episode 8 after the tribes merged. There are two alliances at this point, one with a 7 – 4 advantage over the other. The strong ties for family are represented by solid lines and the weak ties for normal alliances are represented by dashed lines. At this point, the people in the larger alliance are comfortable and think they are safe at tribal council from being voted off.
Things quickly change when they got too comfortable and didn’t feel the need to socialize or interact with Jaclyn. Instead, Wes farted in her face at the campsite and Alex treated her and the other women poorly, asking them to take out the trash for him. This pissed Jaclyn off and using her strong tie with her boyfriend Jon, she was able to blindside one of the strongest players in the game Josh to vote him out with a 6 – 5 advantage.
This huge play in the game shifted the alliances and was a true shocker. Jaclyn wouldn’t have been able to pull this off if it wasn’t for the unique feature of this season of having a loved one on the show and the numbers working perfectly in her favor.
