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Any given individual is a component in a cybernetic system of the social situations and contexts that individual interacts within. What component will have the most influence on the outcome of an interaction depends on what cyberneticists call requisite variety. Requisite variety is the number of options available to the component as a response to an input. The component, and therefore the person, with the most options available is at a distinct advantage in an interaction.

Let us take, as a hypothetical situation, two men competing for the attention and affection of a single woman. The first man has three basic tactics: talking about shared experiences, physical sexuality, and violence⁵¹. The second man is additionally capable of intellectual conversation, mocking, and flirting. The second man can vary his response to the woman or the first man more often and with greater subtlety. With his greater number of conversational gambits he can maneuver the other man into situations that the other man has no response, or the wrong response, to. The second man can also engage the woman's attention for more of her possible moods, significantly changing the dynamic of the social situation in his favor through adaptation to feedback. The second man is at a substantial advantage over the first in this situation, as he has a greater variety of possible responses to the woman.

Another example of requisite variety at work is in the job interview situation. The interview questions are essentially setting the variety necessary to succeed. If the interviewee does not have enough options in their behavior to satisfactorily answer all of the questions offered then his application is rejected. Requisite variety is largely expressed here by being able to recognize the questions behind the question and in being able to reframe ones experience into relevant answers. In other words, if you don't understand the questions, be prepared to ask yourself a similar question you can answer, and then answer that question! You'd be surprised how well this works to distract and confuse the interviewer while placing you in a favorable light.