Great Performance !

The voting strategy changes as the game progresses. In the first several rounds, it makes sense to eliminate bad players since the jackpot grows only when correct answers are given. In later rounds, the strategic
incentives are flipped. The value of building the jackpot is now outweighed by each contestant’s desire to win the jackpot. It’s easier to do that if you eliminate the other good players. So, roughly speaking, the typical contestant will vote to eliminate the worse players in the early rounds and the better players in the later rounds.

The key to measuring the Weakest Link voting data is to tease out a contestant’s playing ability from his race, gender, and age. If a young black man answers a lot of questions correctly but is voted off early, discrimination would seem to be a factor. Meanwhile, if an elderly white woman doesn’t answer a single question correctly and is still not voted off, some sort of discriminatory favoritism would seem to be at play.

Again, keep in mind that all of this is happening on camera. A contestant knows that his friends, family, and co-workers are watching. So who, if anyone, is discriminated against on The Weakest Link?

Not, as it turns out, blacks. An analysis of more than 160 episodes reveals that black contestants, in both the early and late rounds of the game, are eliminated at a rate commensurate with their trivia-answering abilities. The same is true for female contestants. In a way, neither of these findings is so surprising. Two of the most potent social campaigns of the past half-century were the civil rights movement and the feminist movement, which demonized discrimination against blacks and women, respectively.

So perhaps, you say hopefully, discrimination was practically eradicated during the twentieth century, like polio.

Or more likely, it has become so unfashionable to discriminate against certain groups that all but the most insensitive people take pains to at least appear fair-minded, at least in public. This hardly means that discrimination itself has ended—only that people are embarrassed to show it. How might you determine whether the lack of discrimination against blacks and women represents a true absence or just a charade? The answer can be found by looking at other groups that society doesn’t protect as well. Indeed, the Weakest Link voting data do indicate two kinds of contestants who are consistently discriminated against: the elderly and Hispanics.

Taken From : FREAKONOMICS - A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything