Earlier I was at the bookstore, checking out all the books I can’t afford. Happened to pick up Superfreakonomics, out of curiosity towards a specific part of the book I heard about — Sudhir Venkatesh’s analysis of prostitution. Found it interesting, but what stuck in my head was a relatively small detail in a chapter about altruism. To just spit it out, building from an anecdote about a murder where allegedly there were a bunch of witnesses but no one tried to do anything about it, they along the line mentioned a psychological experiment like this.
The premise is simple: one person is given a sum of money, & told to offer an amount from it to a 2nd person. If they accept the offer, both keep the money; if they don’t, neither gets anything. Here was my thought on that game before they revealed the result they got:
“I’d think the 2nd person would expect half, & reject less. At least, that’s what I’d do, and if I were the first person I’d offer half. What reason is there for the 1st to have more? They didn’t earn it, it was just handed to them for the goofy little game.”
Then, there was an altered version of that game called Dictator, where the 1st person got to give the 2nd whatever amount they deemed appropriate & they couldn’t challenge it (hence the name Dictator). My thought on that:
“Well in that case what incentive does the 1st have to give the 2nd person anything? They’ll probably tell ‘em fuck you & keep all of it.”
Needless to say, the results did not line up with how I thought at all. Go pick up the book if you want to know how they did. Don’t buy it though, that section & the prostitution one are the only parts worth reading, just read those & put it back on the shelf.
