New study finds people are incredibly stupid
Some professors at Ohio State University conducted a study that examined cooperation among research subjects. Modifying the classic prisoner’s dilemma game, in which participants decide whether to cooperate or defect, the researchers offered varying amounts of money depending on what choice the participants made. So for instance:
If both cooperate, both get $3
If one defects, he gets $5 while the other person gets nothing
If both defect, both get $1
Previous research indicates that people are more likely to cooperate when larger amounts are involved, say, hundreds of dollars as opposed to three. Well, these researchers set out to determine if it was a higher dollar value that led people to cooperate more or if was merely a larger amount of anything. So they compared cooperation rates when the amount earned could be 3 dollars or 300 cents. And, for some reason, they found that people cooperated more when they could earn 300 cents as opposed to 3 dollar bills. They then interpreted this as meaning that people care more about large amounts of things (300 vs 3) as opposed to their value when deciding to cooperate.
I interpret this as people are stupid. First, people are stupid for favoring 300 cents over 3 dollars just because 300 is larger. They have the exact same value and a second grader would recognize that. Second, people are stupid for favoring the larger amount because now they have to carry 300 pennies around with them. As long as people continue to carry around pennies, we’ll never get rid of that damn coin.
By Matt
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