  A venerable game-theoretic tradition embraces the first suggestion. The hope is that, if we assume enough common knowledge among players about the game’s payoff structure and their own rationality, then, through relatively a priori reasoning, they can successfully predict which equilibrium others will select. An early example of this explanatory tradition is the method of backwards induction, introduced by Ernst Zermelo (1913). The tradition culminates in John Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten’s A General Theory of Equilibrium Selection (1988). However, few researchers still champion this tradition. Its basic flaw is already apparent from our simplest coordination problem, Restaurant Rendezvous. Nothing intrinsic either to rationality or to the logic of the situation favors one equilibrium over the other. Indeed, Harsanyi and Selten’s theory dictates that each player choose a mixed-strategy randomizing over Luigi’s and Fabio’s. Clearly, then, Harsanyi and Selten cannot explain how, in a wide variety of cases, people converge upon a unique, non-randomized solution. Nor does it seem likely that we can overcome this difficulty by emending our analysis of rationality or refining our solution concept. Apparently, breaking the tie between otherwise symmetrical equilibria requires us to supplement the austere viewpoint of pure rational analysis with some additional input, either from human psychology or else from experience.