Opportunism
It was really interesting that this week’s topic is
opportunism. Unlike other weekends, I spend this weekend in Rockford, away from
Champaign, not because I love traveling, but as a guest with my friend Paul,
for an 8-hour driving traffic school. I mean, I am a big fan for traveling, but
the reason that leads me to Rockford is to accompany my friend Paul, who has to
pay off his “opportunism.” Let me start by sharing the story with you.
It all starts from last Thanksgiving Break, when Paul and I
got on a journey to Wisconsin for a skiing trip. It was a long day and a long
drive that we stopped at Saint Louis, to pick up two other friends, and then
tried to make our way to Wisconsin. After an exhausting 6-hour drive, the wind
began to blow very fast, and it was already around midnight, but we were still
on the highway, 3 hours away from our hotel. It was tiring for everyone in the
car, especially for the driver, my friend Paul. He decided to speed up to 100mph
on a road with a speed restriction of 70. Finally, at about midnight, a police
officer showed the light and issued a ticket to Paul, in the blowing wind,
which leads him to Rockford, for a driving traffic lesson of EIGHT HOUR this
week, with my accompany.
Related back to the topic, what is the opportunism? And why
people take advantages of opportunism? In my friend’s case, he is trying to
take advantage of the speed limit, so that we can get to the hotel as soon as
possible. The punishment is pretty straightforward, a ticket! With a room of about
30 students sitting for a driving traffic school, I am thinking about why they
would like to take the advantage of opportunism? Almost everyone knows that the
punishment of going beyond the speed limit on the road will be a ticket, which
may leads to a traffic school, monetary punishment, or even going to the court
or going to the jail. However, some people still do it, to take the advantage
of opportunism, with the knowledge of what the punishment will be. Why? Because
there is a great chance that they won’t get caught, and they do not have to pay
for opportunism, but at the same time can get benefits from taking the
opportunism.
We talked in the class that opportunism could even hurt
people. With the case I talk about, it could cause consequences to innocent
people. Every year, a lot of people get hurt or die in a car crash, or a car
accident. In the case, the police officer reacts as a person who monitors
plagiarism, which may change people’s behavior of taking opportunism, because
the cost is too high for them to pay. For some people, who think the punishment
is too low, there is no way they will change their behavior the next time they
get on the road.
I know it is a very common case I am sharing here, but when
we put it on a context of the nation, it is a big problem. I look into the
Forbs News, and there are two pieces of news doing a little bit estimation. One
piece mentions by car insurance industry estimates that you will file a claim
for a collision about once every 17.9 years. On the other piece of news, the
bond title with bigger font catches my eyes, “Car Crashes Kill 40,000 in U.S.
every year.” That is a lot of life involved in!
In general, opportunism happens more frequently when people
believe the benefit is better than the cost of taking advantages in that
situation. The benefit is usually very obvious but the cost is usually hidden
sometimes. It is the uncertainty of possibility that gives people a chance to
create “snake oil” and sometimes they don’t even regret of doing it. Economists
consider this problem through studying people’s behavior, figuring out their
utility functions, and strategies of opportunism to help govern the whole
society, or persuade people to stay away from opportunism. But sometimes people
don’t look at the situation the same way economists look at, and they focus on
the benefits, while omitting the costs, since a lot of time, costs are implicit
and benefits are very attracting. But all these studies, statistics and policy
will definitely help people to better understand the punishment, and to hopefully
to prevent people from doing it again.
College aged men are more prone to drive over the speed limit than other people. The cost-benefit calculations you discussed in your piece are pretty much the same irrespective of gender or the age of the driver. So something else must explain why young adult males are the ones who do much of the driving too fast.
ReplyDeleteAlso, something you didn't comment on in the story. Driving 10 mph over the speed limit is different from driving 30 mph over the speed limit. Further, as you described it, the wind was blowing quite hard. This made what Paul do seem unsafe to me, as a reader of this piece. Lots of people drive faster than the speed limit. But the vast majority don't drive so much faster than the other drivers on the road.
The first statement of your last paragraph I'd disagree with. First, if the cost actually exceeded the benefit then rationality alone would be enough to explain the not engaging in the activity. So the issue is when the benefit exceeds the costs does opportunism go up as the either as the benefits rise or as the costs fall. This is very hard to know. But in some environments I don't think it is true. People do the the ethical thing, regardless of the cost-benefit calculation. If that's true, then your use of the expression, "In general" is not appropriate. My sense of things is sometimes straight cost-benefit serves as a good predictor of behavior and other times the ethics of the situation is a better predictor. When it is one or the other is a big social science question. I don't know the answer to that question, but I think it is worth puzzling about.
Thank you for taking time to read and comment. For what you talked about that there might be other reasons lead young adults to drive faster , I will believe it might because they are more risky taker compared to people who are more mature. You make a great point that different people drive faster for different reason. In Paul's position, he drove fast because he was tired, and he would like to get to his destination as soon as possible. There is another reason I think worthy discussing a little bit, which is cell phone. Activities involving cell phone, such as texting and calling are very dangerous that could cause accidents. Younger adults might use it as entertainment, business people might consider it very important for immediate communication.
DeleteAlso, I like your point that cost-benefit serves a good predictor of behavior, but is not the only tool people use to make decisions. Exception such as ethical issue is a great example. I guess that is why we say that economists sometimes build models to predict people's behaviors, and study people's behavior based on empirical experiences since decisions like ethical issues can't generally use models to explain. I hope you think that is a better insight. Feel free to leave a note if you'd like to have further discussion.