Guess two-thirds of the average.
Keynes's beauty-contest metaphor describes decisions about other people's expectations. Later experiments turned the idea into number-guessing games.
Inside this model
Nine opponents each guess near 50×(2/3)^depth with seeded noise of at most 5 points. Your target is (2/3) times the average of all ten guesses, including your own. The chart shows how close each possible guess gets to its resulting target. Best response solves guess=(2/3)×(sum of opponents+guess)/10.
Out in the world
A practical use
When estimating resale value, what others will pay can matter separately from your own private use value.
A useful lens. Not a universal law.
- The bots use a chosen rule, not measured human thinking. Repeated play with real people can change expectations, and this single-round game is not a market forecast.
Associated thinkers
Further reading
Explore the original research or the teaching reference behind this experiment.
John Maynard Keynes — The General Theory, chapter 12 ↗