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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Under what condition, does Schelling say, would a black person feel more comfortable reading ads in a church bulletin?

2. What does Schelling say the number of bikes stolen is almost identical to?

3. What does Schelling say social conventions mediate between?

4. What does Schelling say people have a tendency to do?

5. What does Schelling say is the term for a situation where two people hurt themselves and each other by making self-interested decisions?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the open model, in Schelling's analysis?

2. According to Schelling, what is not included in his model of integration and segregation?

3. What is a binary choice?

4. What is a closed model, in Schelling's analysis?

5. What methodological difficulty does Schelling see in a college where the population is 75% female, with a handful of black students?

6. What does Schelling say is the trigger for the decisions that lead to segregation?

7. What is the behavioral model that would make arms reduction a self-fulfilling prophecy?

8. What does Schelling say is the consequence of inadequate analysis of participants in an economic system?

9. How many possible genetic variations can result when two people have a baby together?

10. What behavior does discrimination allow Schelling to model?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Schelling describes underlying assumptions as being difficult to account for in economic models of social behavior. What methods does Schelling use for making this accounting, and where does his social science begin to need psychological language for unconscious behaviors? In other words, what behaviors do Schelling's models still fail to account for, and is there a point beyond which these economic models cannot go, in estimating individual behavior or accounting for micromotives behind macrobehavior? Will there always be an ultimate 'theory of no guarantees' behind the models?

Essay Topic 2

Tolerance is a desirable quality to identify in an economic model of behavior, but how would you define the value of tolerance in Schelling's models of integration? What would you know it by? What factors would indicate a 'tolerant' neighborhood or society?

Essay Topic 3

Micromotives and Macrobehavior was written in 1981, when race relations in the U.S. were tense in the aftermath of the civil rights movement of the sixties and seventies. While the book responded to the inflammatory situation by analyzing micromotives, the past three decades have seen race relations change in the U.S. What aspects of Schelling's analysis is still relevant in the atmosphere of race relations today, and what factors have caused them to change or evolve?

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