Monday's Lesson
Today's lesson is in psychology. I know, I should stick with physics, but I'm reading this book, "Stumbling on Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert. So far, so fun - yes psychology is fun. Any book containing the quote, " ...if they wait long enough, they just might die in time to avoid being publicly humiliated by a monkey," has my vote. If you can stand a little introspection, and if you can admit that you aren't always rational, it is enjoyable.
But that's not the psychology lesson. The lesson is that people aren't selfish jerks after all. I knew it all along! In the latest Scientific American, there's an article about game theory. In a particular game called the traveller's dilemma, "the 'efficient' outcome is for both travelers to choose 100 because that results in the maximum total earnings by the two players. Libertarian selfishness would cause people to move away from 100 to lower numbers with less efficiency in the hope of gaining more individually."
Do people tend to do the selfish thing? No, "most people pick 100 or a number close to 100 -- both those who have not thought through the logic and those who fully understand that they are deviating markedly from the 'rational' choice." They seem to care not only about their own outcome in the game, but also in the other player's outcome.
Now, how about some cookies.
2 comments:
"They seem to care not only about their own outcome in the game, but also in the other player's outcome."
This could be due to the amount of people that believe in karma, or in my case, knowing that a life of screwing people over is pretty lame. And yeah, I am finally posting in here a year after I graduated.
Good to hear from you!
I see it as a matter of symmetry -- what happens to you is as important as what happens to me. Then again that's probably the physicist in me. Symmetry arguments are everywhere in physics.
Maybe symmetry should be next Monday's lesson. Hmm...
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