

Don't Expect People to be Rational - bennesvig
http://bennesvig.com/post/6578192967/incentives-vs-rational

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tseabrooks
The rational thing would be, if they were lazy, to ignore this sign. This sign
is almost completely unenforceable. If the chute is clogged with garbage I'll
be fined? Do you have a video camera watching me put garbage in the chute? If
not it's impossible to determine who left which garbage bag and/or who clogged
the chute*1.

Not to mention the problem where in I'm a good resident... I've brought my
garbage down, but someone else has clogged the chute and suddenly it becomes
my job to either A) unclog the chute [managements job]; B) take my trash back
upstairs; c) leave it and suffer a 50$ penalty

Frankly, this is a bad policy and the people writing the sign have shown
themselves to not be very rational.

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loup-vaillant
The guy who put up the sign correctly assumed that the lazy people he targeted
would (irrationally) react by paying more attention. Which was the desired
effect. Recognizing (and exploiting) irrationality in others may be a bit
mean, but its definitely not irrational by itself.

Now, there may be a simpler explanation: people see the angry note, think
"Oops, someone cares about this crap", and change their behaviour just to be
nice. Or maybe they just didn't really know how they were supposed to handle
the trash, and the note made them less ignorant.

Personally, I suspect all three effects played a part.

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MaxGabriel
I don't think 'rational' is the right word. Responding to incentives, in this
case a monetary disincentive, _is_ rationality. The tenants are either lazy,
care little about the appearance, don't put much thought to the issue, don't
know they're doing something wrong, or don't care because there is no
disincentive to anonymous trash-leaving (especially because other tenants are
doing it).

So maybe a better title would be "don't expect people to think just the same
as you."

~~~
nasmorn
Rationality can only be meaningfully defined as an optimizing behavior over
ones preferences. If these are to not do any extra work unless fined the
neighbors were plenty rational before.

The author is yearning for morally decent people. I guess Kant would have
called this rational but as an economist I am forever doomed to accept peoples
immoral behavior as the expression of their immoral preferences.

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j_baker
I agree with the title, but not the article. People _are_ irrational. But this
is an example of laziness, not irrationality.

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dolvlo
If they leave trash on the floor, they'll be charged $50. So they don't leave
trash on the floor.

This sounds pretty rational to me.

If you'd like to see actual examples of people being fundamentally irrational,
go watch one of Dan Ariely's presentations on the poor choices humans make
over at TED.

