

Are girls afraid of money? - bconway
http://postcards.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2011/04/18/are-girls-afraid-of-money/

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vessenes
The real meat of this awesome link is in the comments deconstructing,
critiquing, and musing on the article. Some gems include thoughts on if she's
really testing girls' willingness to alienate a senior mentor by stealing from
them, a lengthy discussion on societal / collaborative decision making...
There's more. read it!

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qiqing
Control group?

It may be interesting to note that this experiment wasn't repeated on 15 male
Georgetown mentees, so we really have no basis of comparison, the author
simply assumes the boys would have taken the money.

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insickness
Are women afraid of science? This woman surely is. Not having a control group
is no way to conduct a science experiment.

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sp332
A control group is neither necessary nor sufficient for "science" to be
conducted. It's just a tool.

edit: anyway, how could you have a control group? Find 15 sexless undergrads
from similar economic and cultural backgrounds? or 15 one-year-old girls who
have no experience with money?

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DanielStraight
I find it odd that the author matter-of-factly concludes that the girls had a
dysfunctional relationship with money. There are plenty of other conclusions
that could have been drawn.

For my part, with the money on the desks, I probably would've gathered it all
up if I was the first one in the room and turned it in to the leader of the
session or campus police. With someone holding up a $20 and asking who wanted
it, yeah, I would've immediately asked for it.

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hnal943
I think this is exactly the point of the article. Your own reactions dealt
directly with the money. The girls in the article used the money to create
complicated social rules.

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ChuckMcM
I give her full marks for posing the question but only about half credit for
follow-up.

The question is solid, it suggests a variety of experiments;

o Put 'coupons' of $20 value on some of the desks.

o Put 'jewelry' of $20 (approx) value on some of the desks

o Put a 'Logo' shirt on some desks (Logo from the 'presenting' company)

o Put a 'Logo' clothing where the logo is different on each article and for
different designers.

o Put a 'knicknack' (thing SWAG like) on each desk.

Do the experiments with boys and with girls. Ideally all college students, and
preferably sophomores (since as freshmen their cultural values have not fused
as much as they have by the time they are sophomores)

Three things you want to test:

1) Does 'ownership' change behavior?

2) Does 'commercial promotion' (coupons/logos) change it into something you
are expected to take.

3) Does perceived value permute the results.

And of course the whole girl/guy thing.

In my experience I've met people for whom money was a goal (it was the having
they desired most) and some for whom money was a tool (do I have enough to
make _x_ happen?). A smaller number for whom money was a means of influence.

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anigbrowl
More likely, girls are afraid of being ostracized by their peer network for
destabilizing the _status quo_. Put money where nobody would see it being
picked up, and you might get quite different behavior. Put it where everyone
can see it being picked up (or infer the probability that it was picked up) is
very different. Acting on one's own behalf without even checking what one's
peer network thinks signals an indifference to their opinions - a memory which
will probably last far longer than the $20 benefit.

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derefr
I don't really believe that this is a "girl problem." Being timid of
challenging hierarchy by claiming shared resources is rational, and creating
norms that then advantage you with no-one else the wiser is a standard game-
theoretically-optimal response. Both men and women are capable of, and
frequently participate in, this mode of thought--just look at politics--but in
at least some subset of _men_ , this drive is overridden with another one that
does game-theoretically _sub-optimal_ things for low chances of high rewards.

Now _why_ men have this extra drive, I'm not qualified to answer, not having
studied much evolutionary psychology; but I would say that there's probably
some subconscious collusion going on by all parties to defer to "alpha males,"
that will allow this strategy to be optimal when one can signal such traits.

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swampplanet
I remember a financial advisor (a woman) once said that when the male spouse
dies its at least an 80% chance the female spouse didn't know anything about
their finances. I asked her was that due to their age set and she said no, she
finds about the same split with the younger couples she advises as well.

