
We Aren’t the World - dchmiel
http://www.psmag.com/magazines/pacific-standard-cover-story/joe-henrich-weird-ultimatum-game-shaking-up-psychology-economics-53135/
======
asimjalis
As a thought experiment, if this was done in the US with $10k, and the other
subject offered me $3000 I would take it. I would not walk away from $3000 to
punish him for being unfair. If he offered me $100 I would probably walk away.
So I would be more tolerant of unfairness if I was getting a large enough
payout.

This is precisely how contracting shops work in the IT industry in the US.
They keep the bulk of the money and pay the contractor just enough that he
does not walk away from the deal.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> If he offered me $100 I would probably walk away.

Why? Do you really consider it worth $100 to you just to _prevent_ someone
else from getting $9900, or do you just value $100 so little that you are
willing to round it down to $0?

I can imagine real-world scenarios in which I might spend $100 worth of my
time to try to address a problem, especially if I think that problem might
affect others. (Scenarios involving an actual $100 seem even less likely, but
plausible for a sufficiently egregious wrong.)

However, as a game, I'd call it free money no matter the amount; neither
player did anything in particular to earn the money other than taking their
time to play the game, and I don't see it as even slightly unfair of the first
player to offer less money to the second, so I don't see any value in
"punishing" the first player. The first player happened to get the better
opportunity, and the second player gets to choose between having something or
having nothing. In the game version, I'd place zero value on how much the
first player gets.

Now, if I thought I could bluff the first player via advance communication
into believing that I'd reject the offer if less than a certain amount, I'd
certainly do it; however, if they called the bluff, I'll take what I can get.

~~~
yesbabyyes
This is a favorite game of mine and I've given it some thought. I think an
alternate formulation might give the typical HN reader new insight in the
game.

Let's say I tell you I have an idea for a company. It's a really cool idea and
if we realize it we will make boatloads of money. I need your help to realize
it. If you agree, you will get 20% of the company. If you don't, we won't
realize it and neither of us will make any money.

Do you accept? If not, why not?

~~~
DanBC
> Do you accept? If not, why not?

Almost no one on HN will agree. (I predict.) Ideas are easy. Even I have
ideas. Doing something with the idea is what counts. That starts with
programming, but also involves selling product and running the company. So
unless the idea-person has a great record of implementing great ideas and good
exits people will be unwilling to lumber themselves with a lot of work for so
little return.

------
smelendez
> Among the Machiguenga, word quickly spread of the young, square-jawed
> visitor from America giving away money.

I get the sense they tested the game with (for the local economy) large
amounts of money in small towns, where participants probably already knew each
other.

That's a very different scenario than most American iterations I've known of
the game, with college students who probably don't know each other playing for
relatively small amounts of money.

Nickle-and-diming your random classmate out of 10 cents is very different from
taking a week's pay that could have gone to your neighbor.

~~~
learc83
According to the article the participates remain anonymous to each other.

~~~
noahth
I believe part of GP's point is that, for some sizes of village, there may not
be any chance that your counterpart is a stranger. If your counterpart is not
a stranger, even if you don't know their exact identity, you might choose to
play more generously.

------
tokenadult
Full text of the paper that launched the investigation into whether
psychological research relies too much on people from just one kind of
cultural background:

Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the
world. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-3), 61-83.

[http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/Weird_People_BBS_fina...](http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/Weird_People_BBS_final02.pdf)

~~~
shalmanese
This paper, incidentally, has the greatest opening paragraph of all time:

"In the tropical forests of New Guinea the Etoro believe that for a boy to
achieve manhood he must ingest the semen of his elders. This is accomplished
through ritualized rites of passage that require young male initiates to
fellate a senior member. In contrast, the nearby Kaluli maintain that male
initiation is only properly done by ritually delivering the semen through the
initiate’s anus, not his mouth. The Etoro revile these Kaluli practices,
finding them disgusting."

------
eshvk
This article is amazing. I haven't finished reading it completely but as a
person who spend significant parts of my childhood in multiple countries,
there are parts of it which chime with me so well.

E.g. > Recent research has shown that people in “tight” cultures, those with
strong norms and low tolerance for deviant behavior (think India, Malaysia,
and Pakistan), develop higher impulse control and more self-monitoring
abilities than those from other places.

I remember living in India as a teenager and being confused by how rarely if
ever kids in my school would display emotion on the spot when something
happened. The response would come up later and it was as immature as teenagers
everywhere but on the spot responses were polite.

------
confluence
If testing psych students was smelly - this experiment is smellier.

Large amounts of cash = take whatever is offered.

Repeat experiment with a billion dollars. I offer you say 50 million, leaving
950 million to myself. Your move. You honestly going to reject 50 million?

It's actually quite rational that they took the money. Now, what would
actually be interesting is that if they rejected the large amounts of cash.

~~~
bingobangobongo
First, let's do the experiment with a billion dollars and see if you really
just offer me 50 million.

~~~
confluence
That was just an example clearly illustrating my point.

I'd probably offer you a lot less if it were real - say 10-15 million.

~~~
D_Alex
I'm not real rich, but I'd turn you down. Someone so selfish running around
with close to a billion dollars...no. The misery you could cause! Let the
researcher keep their money, they will probably offer it to someone more
deserving in the next round.

~~~
confluence
Doubt it. Quite sure you'd take it with both hands.

Seeing as you work in the oil industry - the above statement does strike one
as being exceedingly odd. You are in the industry for the money aren't you?

That's some serious cognitive dissonance you've got there.

Furthermore, I thought you guys pumped misery out of the ground day in, day
out?

~~~
D_Alex
>You are in the industry for the money aren't you?

Not really. In case you are interested, I am in the industry by accident.

>I thought you guys pumped misery out of the ground day in, day out?

No, we pump oil. And gas. By and large, these things are used to create a
whole lot of happiness.

------
dchmiel
You see this pattern of over generalizing in business when expanding
internationally service or product offerings. 'It works here so lets just sell
it there' has caused a few blunders. Cultural differences can mean colour has
different interpretations and that alone can make or break your sales. Some
form of product modification is necessary so that you don't get lost in the
trap of generalizing.

------
ecmendenhall
Here's another ungated Henrich paper on ultimatum games across societies, if
you're interested in the research:
[http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~bowles/InSearchHomoEconomicus2001...](http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~bowles/InSearchHomoEconomicus2001.pdf)

His book "Why Humans Cooperate" is worth a trip to the library, too. It
combines some formal models, experiments, and an interesting study on the
Chaldean community in Detroit (a less-WEIRD ethnic group in the middle of our
WEIRD society).

The implications of this research are even more radical (and controversial)
than the article suggests. The idea that culture shapes the way we think and
act is interesting enough, but then the big question becomes "where does
culture come from?"

Henrich (and others[1]) suggest that culture evolves through Darwinian
processes of transmission and replication, and that biological and cultural
evolution are coupled. Social Darwinism and sociobiology gave this idea a bad
reputation, and the idea that our social norms have evolved from kin selection
all the way up to impersonal market exchange is still a hard sell for
economists and anthropologists alike. But it's a fascinating idea, and it's
completely changed the way I think about economic behavior and human
cooperation.

[1] "Not By Genes Alone" by Boyd and Richerson is another great book on this
subject:
[http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo361...](http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo3615170.html)

------
filvdg
I wonder in A/B testing you might see different results for landing page
conversions with different nationalities ...

it is said for example that the dutch are more price conscious and the french
more relations/support minded ...

~~~
GuiA
That's actually a great insight. If anyone has links to anything further
exploring this, please post them!

------
sukuriant
"Compared to Yucatec Maya communities in Mexico, however, Western urban
children appear to be developmentally delayed in this regard. Children who
grow up constantly interacting with the natural world are much less likely to
anthropomorphize other living things into late childhood."

I didn't find the word "anthropomorphize" in the other document; and the
section I found in the original document didn't seem to go into what was said
in the associated article. It's a rather long article, and I'll need to read
it when I get home; however, the above section doesn't connect with me.

What does "anthropomorphize" mean in this context? I understand the term to
mean "to give perceptually human characteristics to". There are only two
routes I can follow with this:

1) they mean a human thinking that a smiling animal is a happy animal. And
that animals laugh, and grin; and have all the same facial expressions as
humans, like one would see in Disney movies.

2) they're suggesting that people in the United States believe that animals
continue to have emotions that they can express and other sentient thought,
have a sense of desire for certain outcomes to be had, and for genuine fear
and happiness.

The second possibility isn't something that only people from the US do, at
all. Long before the United States was the apparent urban environment with
lost connection with nature (alluded to in the article in some places), Native
Americans ascribed many emotions and intentions and ideas to the animals
around them, even calling coyotes tricksters; and in Biblical times, calling
someone a "fox" had a particular meaning.

In short, where is this article getting the idea that humans don't
anthropomorphize animals at all stages of life? That word is VERY confusing to
me in this sentence; and to claim that they're using a very limited definition
of anthropomorphize, where it's just human facial expressions is to be unfair
to the word itself.

~~~
_delirium
In the original article, it's discussed in section 2.3, starting on page 13:
[http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/Weird_People_BBS_fina...](http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/Weird_People_BBS_final02.pdf)

The claim seems to be, more or less, that western urban kids interpret animals
by projection or analogization of human traits rather than forming categories
for the animals, more than kids in (some) other societies do. I have no idea
how true that is myself (have not read anything on the subject beyond this
article).

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I haven't read the paper, but this seems blatantly obvious to me. Outside of
most western cities, people interact with animals as food. Western children
are much more likely to interact with animals as pets or, at most, "those
things at the zoo". When you aren't confronted with the regular death of
animals as food, you are able to form more of an emotional bond with the
concept of "animal".

~~~
Dove
My thought as well. My exposure to animals as a kid was almost exclusively
through cartoons, and very occasionally through zoos or other people's pets. I
had no strong opinion on vegetarianism in jr. high, though some of my friends
did. But I immediately developed a strong opinion on the day I actually met a
chicken and a cow.

Even as an adult, I find that real animals look strange to me. I've seen so
many cartoon images of skunks and giraffes and elephants in my life, and even
though I _know_ they're cartoons, when I do a google image search and
photographs dominate the results, I usually find them quite alien.

Some subconscious part of my brain is totally convinced that a giraffe looks
like this . . .

<http://www.moho.biz/oskar-the-giraffe/>

. . . and doesn't immediately recognize this . . .

[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xRmReWpJeJE/T2QxTEZ95_I/AAAAAAAABw...](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xRmReWpJeJE/T2QxTEZ95_I/AAAAAAAABwI/jjyqUXwrErU/s640/giraffe+21.jpg)

. . . as the same animal.

~~~
mitchty
So as someone that grew up on a farm/ranch you are dead on. I honestly have a
hugely hard time identifying with people that have only grown up in a city and
have NO idea where food comes from.

I find it excruciatingly odd people hate on large scale cow lots, but
seemingly find the mass murder of small animals that live in the same place as
grains to be "meh". More rabbits and other cuddly creatures die from combines
than all of the evil things we do to cows in feed lots.

I've had to help out cows after they've prolapsed, and also had to help out
other cows that have fought each other to near death, animals are not disney
cartoons. But I've dated vegetarians and vegans (no offense to anyone there)
that seem to have this unnatural viewpoint of our use of animals as food.

I see cartoon cows and can't help but think its similar to lolcats. So far
removed from reality that we've anthropomorphized things to the point of
ridiculousness. I'll be a bit blunt, after living around cows for 18 years of
my life, I really don't have much sympathy for them. They're just as evil as
humans are to each other, and they are such herd creatures it isn't funny. The
bulls however always seemed to be less skittish, the females, they never acted
even remotely rational or consistent. Bring calves into the picture and throw
even that out the window. The bulls just fought and wanted to get into the
females areas.

Just to counter your city experience a bit, not trying to say feed lots are a
good way to mass produce meat, but I grew up not dealing with any of that. I
have zero qualms eating a cow or chicken, but free range is loads better to
eat than mass produced. I just see them as no different than wheat or other
plants to be honest.

~~~
Dove
Well, thanks -- that's good input. :)

I didn't mean to be misleading. I agree with you; the strong opinion I
developed was that those animals are _clearly_ food. And that some of the
excessive compassion spent on them would be better spent on people, who might
actually appreciate it.

------
asimjalis
The experiment is flawed. $100 means a lot more in Peru than in the US. If the
experiment was conducted in Peru with $1 would the subjects there be more
inclined to be fair? Another factor is that college students who are the usual
subjects in the US are not as concerned about money as subsistence farmers.

~~~
dchmiel
They did control for that by offering an incentive that was only a few days'
wages. "The stakes Henrich used in the game with the Machiguenga were not
insubstantial—roughly equivalent to the few days’ wages they sometimes earned
from episodic work with logging or oil companies."

EDIT

$100 isn't necessarily a few days wages for those who are working in a well
paying full time position but for a college student that could mean a few days
of going out.

~~~
charonn0
A minimum-wage ($7.25/hr) American worker would earn $100 in under 14 hours
(before taxes.)

Imagine yourself playing the game but with $1,000 (or more) on offer. Would
you refuse $300 to punish your partner for keeping $700? Now change the amount
to $10. Would you refuse $3 to punish your partner for keeping $7? Now switch
it around: how much of the money, $1,000 and $10 offers, would you give to
your partner?

~~~
saalweachter
It's not just "refusing $300".

When the stakes go up, your partner is screwing you harder. He's not just
screwing you out of $2 or $20, he's screwing you out of $200 or $2000.

Fuck him.

~~~
charonn0
They're screwing you over more, but is it worth foregoing $200+ just to make a
point to a stranger?

~~~
smsm42
In densely connected societies it is usually worth more, since people interact
frequently, so maintaining a "fair" game is very profitable in the long term,
even at the cost of losing short-term. But in sparsely connected society, when
interactions are rare, I'd expect it to be worth much less. I have no idea how
to quantify it though :)

------
nnq
> urban children appear to be developmentally delayed in this regard. Children
> who grow up constantly interacting with the natural world are much less
> likely to anthropomorphize other living things into late childhood.

I can tell this is true from personal experience. I spent my early childhood
(before starting school at 6) mostly in the countryside, interacting a lot
with animals and nature and when I used to interact with other children who've
spent all their life so far in the urban environment I experienced a lot the
"are they retard or what?!" feeling about their anthropomorphizing
interactions with animals, dolls and even plastic toys, that I distinctively
remember even now. I imagine that they probably felt the corollary about my
competitive-social skills because, as I child, I was never good at "playing
for winning" and using winning at a game to establish a higher social status.

------
smsm42
Why these results are described as something shockingly unexpected? It is a
natural outcome of short-term outlook on the game. Of course, most Americans,
having been raised in Western culture with specific set of values and
behaviors, have more long-term outlooks on interactions with fellow members of
the society, since they know they'd have to live in this society for their
whole life and our culture encourages such way of thinking. On the other hand,
Machiguenga saw Henrich and the game for the first and probably last time in
their lives, no wonder they took short-term approach to it. It is a long known
idea that one-time game and many-time game have different strategies with such
games.

------
intopieces
>"People are not “plug and play,” as he puts it, and you cannot expect to drop
a Western court system or form of government into another culture and expect
it to work as it does back home"

This conclusion comes a decade or more too late, I suppose, to affect U.S.
foreign policy in the Middle East for the better. After doing my undergradate
work in Near Eastern Culture (or, rather, about 3 credits in) it became
apparent that the 'Western ideal' of justice does not translate whole-sale;
that certain adaptations are necesssary to improve the human rights situation,
as is a great deal of 'soul searching' to determine precisely what would
constitute 'improvement.'

~~~
enraged_camel
>>This conclusion comes a decade or more too late, I suppose, to affect U.S.
foreign policy in the Middle East for the better.

I don't want to politicize the discussion too much, but I feel compelled to
ask: do you really believe Bush et al. would actually _care_ even if they had
access to this research's findings?

~~~
intopieces
>>I don't want to politicize the discussion too much, but I feel compelled to
ask: do you really believe Bush et al. would actually care even if they had
access to this research's findings?

I do believe they would. It is in the best interest of the United States to
form stable, like-minded governments abroad. If this cannot be reasonably
accomplished because of cultural differences, it would be beneficial to at
least marginally adapt the strategy to achieve something close to it. Judging
from the US installation of the Shah in Iran, the US is not above installing
dictators to enrich its own interests.

------
guylhem
_"If religion was necessary in the development of large-scale societies, can
large-scale societies survive without religion? Norenzayan points to parts of
Scandinavia with atheist majorities that seem to be doing just fine"_

For the moment.

The situation in Europe is very interesting. There is a strong atheist
movement, yet catholics seem to be on a comeback lately, and the mostly muslim
immigrant population growing too - and at an even faster pace.

If religion says "go forth and populate the earth", and if atheist have less
than 2.1 children, how long until they get outnumber and forced to chance
their allegiance by the religous - at gunpoint if necessary? [nobody expects
the spanish inquisition :-)]

So I would not base any conclusion on a punctual observation when you have
partial derivative pointing to different conclusion in a longer timeframe.

Counter example : if large-scale societies survive fine without religion, how
come there are so few of them ? Why do they have a tendency disappear in
history, and be replaced by religious societies?

Also, the method of the prisoner game is questionable. The article says the
amount was not insubstantial - around several days of work, but does not
explain how it was chosen or how it was tested.

I would be very interested to know about the price elasticity of the
acceptance rate and the price elascticity of the percentage offered.

I mean, do people in this group have a constant acceptance (fully inelastic -
they always accept) or can you get to a point where they refuse because they
think it's unfair?

Here's a quick example - go to any fast food join, eat normally, then when you
have to leave, prepare the exact amount of cash in one side, and the tip in
the other side of the table, and say to server the food was not to your taste,
therefore you are leaving only a one cent tip (or a dime)

See if they take the free money, or if they feel so insulted that they refuse.
Rince and repeat until you figure the amount they will accept without feeling
insulted.

So I really wonder if there could be a cash amount where the remote people
from this tribe would react just the same as all of us - which would just
point to a calibration problem.

~~~
rohern
The most populous nation on Earth is by Western standards non-religious --
China. I do not mean that everyone is an atheist as demanded by communism.
Rather, the folk "religions" that are most common (there is a large portion of
the population, mostly educated urbanites, who are not believers in these
either) say very little in the way of the issues you mentioned. They have more
to do with granting good luck and curing disease.

Obviously this has not hurt their population.

~~~
guylhem
This has not hurt the population yet, but the one child policy will certainly
wreak havoc the country if it is maintained for too long.

When it will be removed (it will have to), I wonder which group will take the
most advantage of it and grow faster - the "non religious by western standard"
or the various ethnic groups - say in the XianJiang.

Also, the fact that an authoritarian communist country where atheism is
promoted still couldn't remove the religious allegiances is interesting. The
former USSR tried the same - and failed.

~~~
rohern
The one child policy does not apply to ethnic minorities.

~~~
guylhem
They are therefore already taking advantage of it, but I wonder when it will
be removed it the growth differential will equalize.

My guess is that it won't, and the religious represent a very significant
percentage of the population - until they become the majority.

Without willing to insult anyone, I wonder if a human group growth with
religion, they reach decadence with atheism - then stats again, eventually
with a different religion, in a loop.

EDIT: the point is not about "cultural group" but religion. Are these
minorities becoming atheist, or do they keep some religious self
identification? I guess they still identify as such, even if they don't
practice. Culture is hard to bring back, but religion can grow back very
quickly

~~~
eropple
Equating atheism to decadence is pretty funny when you're familiar with, say,
the history of the Catholic Church, almost since its inception, or the history
of the religious classes of the Muslim world.

------
Macsenour
I think my basic problem with this is economics. I'd be happy with a days pay,
even if it meant the other guy got a weeks pay. But I might squabble about 10
cents when the guy got 90 cents.

I say squabble because I don't mean fight or be offended. I might argue for
the fun of the argument, not the actual value of the money. I wouldn't accept
the 10 cents, knowing that we both then got nothing because $1 doesn't mean
that much to me.

------
contingencies
_Generous financial offers were turned down because people’s minds had been
shaped by a cultural norm that taught them that the acceptance of generous
gifts brought burdensome obligations._

More on this from an English anthropologist in _Debt: The First 5000 Years_ ,
a history of money and currency that is exceedingly timely given the current
emergence of Bitcoin and Ripple, and the strange survival of the Swiss WIR.

------
hakaaaaak
If we look at the history of science, most things that we held as fact many
years ago are now considered either totally false or at least marred by
misunderstanding or lack of data.

Extrapolated that means that almost all of our current scientific beliefs will
be "proven" false or at least considered marred by misunderstanding or lack of
data at some point in the future.

Humans _can not_ understand everything, and they never will.

~~~
anonymoushn
Please read this:
<http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm>

~~~
hakaaaaak
Unfortunately, rationalism is needed to prove rationalism, and once science is
"accepted fact" and we all accept things like "round", "sphere", and "Earth"
then we assume we have made progress.

But, there is not a single fact that could not be disproved by more evidence.
Even "the Earth is round" could be proven to be wrong and we consider it part
amorphous-hyperconical-hypertubular in the future, or perhaps we prove
scientifically that we live in a simulation/a game and the universe, shapes,
Earth, etc. is a simple allusion, comparable to the blocky pixel graphics in
old Atari 2600 games.

Please read this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis>

While it is certainly _possible_ that we understand one or more eternal truths
that span all that exists in every dimension and every universe, considering
the age, maturity, and abilities of the human race, it is extremely doubtful
that we have made much progress or that we ever will. Science is great when
approached from the standpoint of wonder and discovery, but it is terrible
when it comes to "truth". Don't believe me? There is a whole religion devoted
to the belief system that many are infected or affected by aliens
(Scientology); many accept that this faith is based on a science fiction novel
a.k.a. fiction, but many believe it is true. In the same way, many are
convinced that science has elucidated truths, even though we don't know that
it has or ever will. Yet, you accept science as truth in part. That is an
irrational belief because the only way to accept it as rational is to have
faith that it is rational. Rationalism is nothing without faith, but faith
exists without rationalism.

------
gavanwoolery
It is an interesting experiment but I don't think that it necessarily implies
there is a huge difference in human psychology - if you did the experiment
with a poor (i.e. homeless) American, I am pretty sure they would accept any
amount of money. To add to this, I think there was probably some confusion
when explaining the rules of the game to the subjects.

~~~
lilsunnybee
Just because someone's homeless doesn't mean they've given up all dignity, and
aren't offended by unfair treatment. I think you might be surprised what a lot
of indigent folks would refuse because it was an inequitable transaction.

------
contingencies
As a western-born programmer who has spent much time in East Asia, I found the
linked paper _Culture and Systems of Thought: Holistic vs. Analytic Cognition_
even more interesting. [http://www-
personal.umich.edu/~nisbett/images/cultureThought...](http://www-
personal.umich.edu/~nisbett/images/cultureThought.pdf)

------
markdown
Slightly OT, but the second image in that article is bogus. It's a photo of
Fijian women on a Fijian mat (woven pandanus leaves). It's not Peruvian as
claimed by the caption.

------
_quasimodo
I find it weird that nobody questions the use of the word 'american' in the
article. Would the Machiguenga not also be (at least South-) Americans?

~~~
robinh
Also, American and Western culture are used practically interchangeably. I
find this quite ironic.

~~~
hexagonc
They aren't used interchangeably in the linked article. In the article,
Americans are singled out as being particularly "weird" even compared to other
"Western" nations.

