The Path to Strategic Unpredictability

Imagine you’re a soccer player standing at the penalty mark in the final moments of a championship game. You know the goalkeeper has studied your previous kicks; they know that you favor the lower right corner when under pressure. If you kick there again, you’re predictable, and the goalkeeper might easily save the goal. But if you choose to aim for the top left corner instead, you add an element of surprise, increasing your chances of outsmarting the keeper. This need to be strategically unpredictable in high-stakes situations like penalty kicks is mirrored across various competitive settings.

Unpredictability has been an invaluable skill throughout human evolution, especially for hunting and survival. For early humans, successful hunting hinged on their ability to be unpredictable—both in tracking prey and in evading predators. Animals evolved to detect patterns as a means of survival, so early hunters had to constantly vary their strategies to outsmart their prey. This need for unpredictability didn’t just apply to securing food but also to staying safe; evading predators meant avoiding predictable routines and developing quick, adaptive responses.

Today, unpredictability remains a key strategy across many areas of life. It’s essential in sports and competitive games to keep opponents guessing and gain an edge. In negotiations, a less predictable approach can prevent others from anticipating your next move, giving you leverage. Even in self-defense, being unpredictable can make it harder for a potential attacker to control or anticipate your actions. From ancient times to modern life, the power of unpredictability has been a constant asset, enabling humans to stay ahead, adapt quickly, and navigate complex social and physical landscapes.

However, unpredictability is not an easy skill to master and requires a delicate balance of psychology and game theory, a challenge even more profound when you consider how young minds handle similar strategic decisions.

In a recent study in my lab, the foundational elements of unpredictability were examined, not in professional athletes, but in children and adolescents. The findings of our study illuminate that the capacity to make unpredictable choices, while not fully aligned with game-theoretical expectations, is present in young minds but evolves in intriguing ways.

The Experimental Setup: Hide-and-Seek With a Twist

We designed an experiment based on a simple yet strategic game resembling hide-and-seek. Participants ranged from children as young as seven to adolescents up to 16 years old, with a few college students added as a control group. The game involved two players: one acting as the “hider” and the other as the “seeker.” In each round, the hider chose one of three locations to hide a reward, and the seeker’s goal was to predict the hider’s choice to maximize their own gain.

The twist? Not all locations were created equal. Some spots held more valuable rewards, thus making them obvious hiding choices if one only thought about reward potential. This setup created a tension between choosing a high-reward location that is more likely to be found by the seeker or picking a lower-reward, less predictable option. According to game theory, the best strategy is a mixed approach: hiding in high-value locations occasionally but randomizing choices enough to be unpredictable.

Children as Strategic Players

A fascinating finding of the study was that children and adolescents naturally engage in randomization to some extent, demonstrating an intuitive grasp of strategic choice. Yet, they all favored the high-value spots much more frequently than optimal play would suggest. Interestingly, they did not do worse than college students. This choice reflects an understandable heuristic: Why not go for the location that promises the greatest reward if it’s available?

What this behavior points to, however, is not a lack of strategic insight but an inclination toward simpler decision-making rules. By favoring high-value locations, children show that they grasp the concept of maximizing rewards but struggle with the more complex idea of concealing this preference through randomization. Even so, almost no child displayed purely predictable behavior, indicating an inherent understanding of the benefit of variability—even if imperfectly executed.

Truthfulness and Deception in Young Strategists

Adding a further layer of intrigue, we also introduced “cheap talk” as part of the game, where the hider could communicate (truthfully or deceptively) where they were planning to hide. In theory, this messaging should be uninformative since players have opposing interests. However, younger children were notably more likely to be truthful in their messages. Seekers, on the other hand, tended to believe these messages slightly more often than they should, revealing a touch of gullibility that diminished with age. The dynamics of truthfulness and deception in this game reflect developmental shifts: Younger children are more prone to transparency, while older children and adults increasingly recognize and employ deception as a strategic tool. Yet, communication does not impact outcomes significantly.

Cognitive Development and Unpredictability

The study’s findings reveal several developmental insights. First, the ability to be optimally unpredictable doesn’t emerge fully formed; it also does not develop well. All participants, despite being intuitive in their strategies, struggle with the counterintuitive aspects of game theory, such as favoring low-value options to make themselves less predictable. Second, the inclination toward honest communication in younger children aligns with broader research on cognitive development, suggesting that deception is a learned strategy that emerges alongside more complex forms of social reasoning.

Drawing Parallels With Random Sequence Generation

Mastering unpredictability in strategic situations requires what researchers call a “mental randomization device,” where decisions are made without falling into detectable patterns. However, studies show that people struggle to produce truly random sequences, often avoiding repetitions or creating serially linked responses. Even with age and experience, improvements are modest, as our ability to inhibit predictable choices remains limited.

The Broader Implications: Learning to Be Unpredictable

This study reveals that unpredictability—a skill that appears simple on the surface—is a nuanced ability that doesn't naturally develop over time. Beyond games, strategic randomness is essential in fields like sports, negotiations, and politics, where keeping others guessing can be a powerful advantage. Understanding how this skill (or the potential for it) emerges can help educators and psychologists better equip young people to make smarter, more adaptive decisions.

In soccer, as in life, the power to surprise opponents often spells the difference between winning and losing. Young minds, even if not fully versed in the principles of game theory, naturally lean toward creative strategies, reminding us that the roots of unpredictability lie in the instinct to test limits and maximize rewards. Yet, the ability to strategically apply randomness to various situations does not inherently develop, underscoring the importance of learning and practice in honing this skill.