A soundtrack of high-tension music and drums plays in a dark room lit only by a crackling fire. Two rows of seats are filled by people wearing their best poker faces, ready to commit any betrayal necessary for victory.

One by one, each person takes a long walk out the door to a separate location where they can cast their vote — the name of who they want to permanently remove from those two rows.

What’s on the line? It might as well be life and death: extra credit.

The ritual is a regular Tuesday morning for students in the class Outwit, Outplay, Outlast: The Dynamics of Survivor. The psychology and math course uses the reality TV show Survivor as a tool to understand decision-making, and it turns students into the decision-makers.

Meanwhile this semester, in a philosophy course called The Working Life: Work, Meaning, and Happiness, students watch a season of Survivor in their pursuit of a personal philosophy of work. They focus on the social strategies in the show that can transfer into professional life, as well as the ways contestants separate their personal selves from their actions in the game.

The two courses recently converged during a visit to campus by three-time Survivor contestant Kelley Wentworth, who became aware of The Dynamics of Survivor course after senior psychology student Molly Snook posted about it on TikTok. Wentworth visited classes and spoke with students to discuss things like her mental approach to the game and how she transferred Survivor skills to her professional life — plus, of course, a few behind-the-scenes tidbits.

While Snook connected Wentworth with her class, she credits her professors for what makes The Dynamics of Survivor special.

“They took something that they enjoyed,” she said. “And they are making it such an engaging and exciting classroom to be in.”

Combining disciplines

In each season of Survivor, which began airing on CBS in 2000, contestants are dropped on a remote island and put into competing teams. They collaborate to survive, complete challenges, and ultimately vote out a team member every episode. Halfway through, the teams merge, and it becomes every castaway for themself. The winner of the final vote gets $1 million.

In Dynamics of Survivor, students learn about mathematical game theory and social cognitive neuroscience in class. They then split into teams for their own Survivor game and strategically apply what they’ve learned in class.

“Being on the other side of the game is a lot more interesting,” said Garret Paciorek, a senior chemical engineering student.

Even after getting voted out in the first round, Paciorek said he had better understood the necessary decisions in Survivor. He attributed his own downfall to first impressions — a psychological concept covered at the beginning of the class.

“It was cool to not only learn that,” he said, “but then also for it to be immediately applicable in the game.”

The Dynamics of Survivor is co-taught by Vanessa Chan-Devaere, an assistant teaching professor of psychology, and Brian Mulholland, an assistant professor of the practice in mathematics. They’re both members of an 8-person Notre Dame faculty watch group that meets to watch new episodes and share their reactions, which are often influenced by their varied fields of study.

“One of the reasons that I love working at Notre Dame is I feel like there are so many opportunities for myself to continue my education and show the students a love of learning."

- Brian Mulholland, assistant professor of the practice in mathematics

When Notre Dame’s course catalog needed more interdisciplinary classes, Chan-Devaere and Mulholland saw an opportunity to get creative.

Because decision-making is a large part of Survivor, Chan-Devaere and Mulholland created their joint class for students to analyze the show on a deeper, intellectual level.

“The goal of our class is to say, ‘What if we took pieces from the math perspective and from the psychology perspective and put them together?’” Chan-Devaere said.

Mulholland teaches students how to solve problems utilizing mathematical game theory and modeling tools. To properly make decisions, he said, students make assumptions, do some math, and then draw conclusions. Students are able to map out every possible decision with payoff matrices and game tree models, which can be used to strategize and operate under the assumption that everyone is maximizing their own success.

After students learn how to navigate decisions mathematically, they explore the principles of social cognitive neuroscience, which examines how our brains operate when we think, how that’s influenced by other people, and how we make decisions based on those relationships.

“Psychology researchers use games to study how the brain is involved in the decision-making process,” Chan-Devaere said. “We map those onto a season of Survivor.”

While enjoying the academic engagement of their students, Chan-Devaere and Mulholland also learn from one another’s expertise — Chan-Devaere never thought she’d utilize game trees, and Mulholland never studied the brain before the course.

“One of the reasons that I love working at Notre Dame is I feel like there are so many opportunities for myself to continue my education and show the students a love of learning,” Mulholland said.

Surviving work

During the pandemic, Paul Blaschko — another member of the faculty watch group — binge-watched 26 seasons of Survivor with his wife in a few months.

“I became obsessed,” said Blaschko, an assistant professor of philosophy and director of the Sheedy Family Program in Economy, Enterprise, and Society. “I was just, like, transfixed — both because it’s really interesting in its own right but also because so many of the dynamics in the show mirrored dynamics that I saw both in my experience in a competitive workplace and in academia in general.”

While watching the show, Blaschko was also reading about the ethics of contemporary corporate life. This interest was inspired by unanswered questions about work in God and the Good Life, the introductory philosophy course he often teaches.

“How can we, in the contemporary world, flourish at, in, and through our work?” he said. “And that presupposes an affirmative answer to a more foundational question, which is, ‘Is it possible?’”

Blaschko developed The Working Life to answer these questions using the framework of virtue ethics, and resources from utilitarianism, and existentialism — plus a sprinkling of Survivor-ism.

Students in the philosophy course watch one season of Survivor in their pursuit of a personal philosophy of work. They focus on the social strategies in the show that can transfer into professional life, as well as the ways contestants separate their personal selves from their actions in the game.

Blaschko lets the conversation flow with the class’s intellectual curiosity.

“Let’s talk about power dynamics. Let’s talk about gender in Survivor. Let’s talk about the role that loyalty and trust play,” he said. “We could easily do a yearlong course on different seasons of Survivor and different concepts that come up.”

“Let’s talk about power dynamics. Let’s talk about gender in Survivor. Let’s talk about the role that loyalty and trust play. We could easily do a yearlong course on different seasons of Survivor and different concepts that come up.”

- Paul Blaschko, assistant professor of philosophy

Blaschko said some students are initially skeptical about watching reality TV for a class, but they warm up to it after they realize how much they can learn.

“Novelty being inserted into the classroom is the fire under a lot of people, including me,” said junior Graham Wolfe, a junior studying business analytics and impact consulting. “It makes the motivation more intrinsic.”

Wolfe is taking the class to fulfill a requirement for the Sheedy Program, which brings together students at the intersection of liberal arts and business. In addition to rigorous interdisciplinary coursework, this cohort-based program provides opportunities for career discernment, collaborative research, and meaningful dialogue — a key facet of The Working Life.

Wolfe added that seeing Survivor on the syllabus didn’t feel like a random attempt to make the class more interesting — instead, it was the perfect tool to make the class material more tangible.

“A key criticism of philosophy is that it’s detached from reality,” said Luke Donoghue, a Sheedy Program sophomore majoring in finance and global affairs and minoring in Chinese. “In Survivor, you get to see real emotions from people.”

While reality TV is not a traditional academic tool, Blaschko argues that anything from pop culture can inspire philosophical conversations. Scholars just need to ask the right questions.

“Often for me, watching Cops or Love Is Blind or Survivor with at least just a little bit of a critical lens provides as much insight into the human condition as a thousand academic articles,” Blaschko said. “Anybody can watch Survivor, and anybody can engage in a deep dialogue about what it means.”

Originally published by Adah McMillan at al.nd.edu on April 28, 2025.