Mission Posted May 21, 2009 Posted May 21, 2009 Ok, so I was reading about this psychology experiment they did and I thought it would be interesting to see what pirate re-enactors thought. How it works: Two people are randomly assigned to each other. You do not meet and your identity is never revealed. At stake is $100.00. One person picks how the money will be divided between the two of you and the other chooses whether to accept the deal or not. There are 2 rules: 1. You are only given one opportunity to play. 2. If the second person declines the deal, you both walk away with nothing. Since we don't actually have the situation described, I have created a poll which asks for the lowest division you would accept if it were offered to you by your unseen partner. (Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you're a pirate and would take all the money, but that's not an option.) Mycroft: "My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher, yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce about his heart?" John: "I don't know." Mycroft: "Neither do I. But initially he wanted to be a pirate."
Graydog Posted May 21, 2009 Posted May 21, 2009 (edited) Oop's my bad. Misread the base post, nevermind. Edited May 21, 2009 by Graydog Why am I sharing my opinion? Because I am a special snowflake who has an opinion of such import that it must be shared and because people really care what I think!
Iron Bess Posted May 21, 2009 Posted May 21, 2009 How come.... there is no option to just cut a throat and keep it all fer yourself?? Well, you may not realize it but your looking at the remains of what was once a very handsome woman!
Rumba Rue Posted May 21, 2009 Posted May 21, 2009 Seeing the results.....some greedy buggers around here.....pirates....
Mission Posted May 22, 2009 Author Posted May 22, 2009 How come.... there is no option to just cut a throat and keep it all fer yourself?? Because that's what everyone would choose based on their personas. (It would bias the results and that ain't scientific.) Mycroft: "My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher, yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce about his heart?" John: "I don't know." Mycroft: "Neither do I. But initially he wanted to be a pirate."
Capt. Sterling Posted May 22, 2009 Posted May 22, 2009 Hmmm how come there is no 60 to us and 40 to the partner... and so on down? Are we to just assume that the partner is better qualified and more deserving? "I being shot through the left cheek, the bullet striking away great part of my upper jaw, and several teeth which dropt down the deck where I fell... I was forced to write what I would say to prevent the loss of blood, and because of the pain I suffered by speaking."~ Woodes Rogers Crewe of the Archangel http://jcsterlingcptarchang.wix.com/creweofthearchangel# http://creweofthearchangel.wordpress.com/
Mission Posted May 22, 2009 Author Posted May 22, 2009 Hmmm how come there is no 60 to us and 40 to the partner... and so on down? Are we to just assume that the partner is better qualified and more deserving? Well, I made an assumption - one based on the results of the actual experiments. But let me phrase it as a question to you: If you were the person who was charged with offering the split, would you offer 60% of the total to another, unknown and unseen person and be willing to accept 40% if they agreed to accept your offer? (On the plus side, I imagine they would almost surely accept.) Mycroft: "My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher, yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce about his heart?" John: "I don't know." Mycroft: "Neither do I. But initially he wanted to be a pirate."
Iron Bess Posted May 22, 2009 Posted May 22, 2009 Hmmm how come there is no 60 to us and 40 to the partner... and so on down? Are we to just assume that the partner is better qualified and more deserving? Well, I made an assumption - one based on the results of the actual experiments. But let me phrase it as a question to you: If you were the person who was charged with offering the split, would you offer 60% of the total to another, unknown and unseen person and be willing to accept 40% if they agreed to accept your offer? (On the plus side, I imagine they would almost surely accept.) Nope. Actually... I suppose it would depend on what I knew for a fact they were going to contribute..... Well, you may not realize it but your looking at the remains of what was once a very handsome woman!
Mission Posted May 22, 2009 Author Posted May 22, 2009 The way this was set up, no one contributes anything other than their time participating in the experiment. Mycroft: "My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher, yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce about his heart?" John: "I don't know." Mycroft: "Neither do I. But initially he wanted to be a pirate."
Iron Bess Posted May 22, 2009 Posted May 22, 2009 The way this was set up, no one contributes anything other than their time participating in the experiment. Ahhh.... Well, you may not realize it but your looking at the remains of what was once a very handsome woman!
Mission Posted May 30, 2009 Author Posted May 30, 2009 Actually, a lot of people won't accept less than 50% in Western cultures - most won't accept less than 30 - 40%. Anything else is seen as not being "fair" even though the people participating in the experiment aren't losing any money no matter how it is divided. Even if they accept a split of 100%/0%, the result is no different than if they reject the offer other than the knowledge that some anonymous person walked away (in this example) with $100 based on their decision. Thus, "fairness" is a sort of guiding principle in Western cultures, even though, at least in this experiment, it is not really a purely rational response. From a purely rational POV, any amount of money you were offered is better than none. This experiment has been done many times (once one psychologist finds an experiment that proves something contrary to the general principles, other psychologists try various permutations, either to test it further or to try an prove the original experimenter wrong). The one I found most interesting was Joseph Henrick's version at UCLA. You can read an overview of it here. He ran the experiment with a group of UCLA students and then again with members of a primitive tribe in Peru who had had minimal contact with the outside world. He found that the members of this tribe were willing to accept much lower splits, especially if the participants had not spent any time in Western cultures. (Those who had thought more like the UCLA students.) From the above paper: "While typical U.S. results produce a[n arithmetic] mean offer of 40%, a mode [the middle number in a group of numbers - not the arithmetic mean which is figured by adding all the values together and dividing by the total number of values] of 50% and few offers below 20%, the Machiguenga proposed a mean offer of 27.5%, with a mode of 25%, and many offers of 15%. Similarly, Machiguenga responders, with one exception, always accepted—many offers of 15% were accepted. Whereas, Americans frequently reject offers below 20%." I find it interesting that a primitive tribe is more purely rational than US College students. (Not to mention the data observed in other experiments involving several other cultures.) Mycroft: "My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher, yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce about his heart?" John: "I don't know." Mycroft: "Neither do I. But initially he wanted to be a pirate."
Tartan Jack Posted May 30, 2009 Posted May 30, 2009 (edited) I misread the initial post and though it was the reverse. What offer would I make, rather than what I would accept. That would be an interesting question in itself. Edited May 30, 2009 by Tartan Jack -John "Tartan Jack" Wages, of South Carolina Â
Silkie McDonough Posted May 30, 2009 Posted May 30, 2009 hmmmm, seems to me that even $10.00 is better than $.00. Maybe that is because I work at a bank and see people being stupid about money all of the time. Additionally, who knows, maybe the person making the choice opposite of me is "fair" minded and not greedy.
LadyBarbossa Posted June 1, 2009 Posted June 1, 2009 Simple to me... 50/50 straight across the board. Ye don't compromise and negotiate with greedy bastards. ~Lady B Tempt Fate! an' toss 't all t' Hell!" "I'm completely innocent of whatever crime I've committed." The one, the only,... the infamous!
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now