

Would you steal a buck? How about a can of soda? - chaostheory
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/ariely-tt0409.html

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zeraholladay
Question: "Even though the value was comparable [cans of sodas and a dollar]
--and thus the situations were supposed to be equivalent--people responded in
opposite ways. Why is that?"

Answer: Sane people leave six packs of sodas in refrigerators so the sodas get
cold and in case those with access to the refrigerator get thirsty. The old
idiom applies: treat others as you would want to be treated.

Dollar bills generally do not belong in refrigerators. Thus there is no social
norm reasonably explaining the purpose of the dollars in the refrigerator. The
researcher needs to provide an explanation as to why the situations are
supposed to be equivalent.

~~~
dgabriel
That's an interesting question, but you can replicate this experiment in a
variety of ways and see the same result. My mother is a nurse, and she has a
saying that goes something like, "Leave a $50 bill in the break room, and
nobody will touch it, but leave a plate of brownies and they're gone before
you can tell people to take one."

Since it won't cost you much, try this: Leave a box of pastries or chocolates
somewhere people congregate (the lunch room, a common kitchen, etc. Probably
not on the street :). Count how many are left the next day. At another point,
leave the cash equivalent. Count how much is missing at the end of the day.

In the vast majority of cases, the food goes (in the absence of explicit
permission), but the money doesn't.

~~~
bouncingsoul
Don't plates of food carry _implicit_ permission? One person wouldn't bring a
plate full of brownies if she intended it only for herself.

And if she did she would make a note saying so.

~~~
dgabriel
Ok, here's another example. Only a few people I know, a small handful, have
had roommates take money from them. However, virtually everyone I know has had
a roommate take food from them (or has taken food from a roommate) without
permission.

~~~
sounddust
But the problem is still the same. The statement that "people have an
irrational sense of logic because they would take food from a roommate, but
not money" is still incorrect.

Of the 15 or so roommates I've had in my life, 13 or 14 would have almost
always answered "yes" to the question "hey, can I take XXX from the fridge and
eat it." Whereas fewer of them would have answered the same if I had asked for
money. Therefore, the decision to take something from another person is
heavily influenced by the anticipated response of that person (and therefore
not as illogical as the researcher is concluding).

~~~
dgabriel
Would your roommates refuse to lend you 5 dollars? If not, why is it wrong to
take the 5 dollars from his desk, or take money he left in a common area?
Under your reasoning it would perfectly fine, common, even.

"I'm sure he won't mind if I just take a few dollars," seems more wrong than
"I'm sure he won't mind if I drink one of his fancy beers/soymilk
smoothies/etc".

~~~
sounddust
I think you're missing my point. Yes, it seems more wrong to take money than
to take a drink from the fridge.

The researcher in this study is saying "aha! taking a drink is exactly the
same as taking money, therefore human beings are illogical thinkers in this
scenario!" But it is in fact logical - it's based on the anticipated response
of the person whose money/drink you're taking (and if you don't know how it
belongs to - the general expectations of people in your society/community).

Also, I'm sure that there are societies in which people never take drinks from
other people, and consider it the same as taking money. A comprehensive study
would have covered more than an American college campus.

~~~
demallien
No, I don't think that is what he is saying at all. He is saying that standard
economics treats the two as being the same, because it reduces things to their
dollar value. The experiment identifies an area where standard economic
assumptions breakdown, which means that you can't use standard economic
theories to determine the result.

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bouncingsoul
_But then he tried another variation: Before doing the test, he asked one
group of subjects to name 10 books they had read in high school. He asked
another group to name as many of the Ten Commandments as they could remember.
The group that listed the books followed the same pattern as the earlier test
– they all cheated a little. But the group that named the commandments was
different: Nobody cheated at all!_

 _"Just the act of contemplating morality eliminated cheating," Ariely
explains._

This conclusion seems like one someone _wanted_ to make, not one that makes
sense.

Couldn't it just be that people know the ten commandments are easily checked,
so it's silly to try to make some up?

And I don't understand how they know people cheated on the books question. How
can you possibly find out what books someone read while in high school? Unless
they mean specifically which ones were assigned (which still seems hard to
verify).

And if people listed some titles they hadn't read it doesn't imply cheating:
they could simply be remembering incorrectly.

~~~
warwick
I found that section confusing too. I think it's just the result of a bit of
bad writing though. After rereading it, I'd guess they had subjects list books
or commandments and then take the addition test.

~~~
bouncingsoul
I think you're right.

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ChaitanyaSai
Dan Ariely, the researcher behind this, has done a lot of seriously cool work
on human behavior (People call it behavioral economics, which makes it sound
rather academic or wonkish).
<http://web.mit.edu/ariely/www/MIT/chapters.shtml>

This somewhat personal essay is worth reading for many reasons:
<http://web.mit.edu/ariely/www/MIT/Papers/mypain.pdf>

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aneesh
The values are not always equivalent. When you're really thirsty, a can of
soda is worth more than a buck.

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bkow20
What would you do if you found 280 bucks in a stack of 20's on the sidewalk?

This actually happened to me on campus a couple years ago. Not knowing what to
do, I picked up the bills and just stood there awkwardly, holding them out,
hoping the person who dropped them would come back and claim them (under the
assumption that a random person wouldn't say anything to me holding 14 20's).
I skipped class waiting, and then, not wanting to miss the next class pocketed
the money. Was I wrong?

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thingsilearned
I just finished and recommend a very interesting book on this kind of thing.
It's called

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. By Robert B. Cialdini

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antiform
I think a small vignette from Clerks says it best:

Dante Hicks: "Theoretically, people see money on the counter, and no one
around, they think they're being watched."

Veronica: "Honesty through paranoia."

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bprater
I bought the book this week. It's a juicy compelling read if you are
interested in psychology and marketing.

