Comments on: Quick intuitive decisions foster more charity and cooperation than slow calculated ones

By: luckey

luckey — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:08:28 +0000

This is a interesting read and will help me on my dissertion topic. I am also looking at intuitive and deliberate processing. If anyone else has more journals for me to look at it will be highly appreciated.

By: Gert

Gert — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 13:26:25 +0000

“Rand now wants to find out more about how the link decision speed and cooperation varies between individuals.”

In the paper linked below we found that the effect only holds for individuals with prosocial values. Also, it holds only in situations in which the interaction partner is perceived as similar or “psychologically close”.

http://psp.sagepub.com/content/37/8/1080.short

By: Pam

Pam — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 16:24:03 +0000

We hear stories about everyday “heroes” – people who act to save someone else even at their own risk – and when they are asked why or what went through their mind the most common response is “I don’t know, I just acted.” I think this is another example of altruistic “intuitive” quick thinking.

By: TJ Kelleher

TJ Kelleher — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 16:20:48 +0000

The paper could have all sorts of bias in it:

These people are almost certainly weird in the sense of Henrich — it is a mistake to think that being in college is the most important aspect of his criticism of laboratory social science, especially as the acronym stands for western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. Furthermore it is probably also a mistake to act as though a group acquired via the Mechanical Turk service won’t have considerable bias built in separate from just the fundamental weirdness of members of an educated, wealthy, Western culture. For example, the subjects were playing games with $.40, having also been paid $.50 to participate. Convince me that the willingness to work, however slightly, for such little money doesn’t introduce major bias into this paper. Lastly, convince me that the authors themselves aren’t biased. I’d say the normative language of the last sentence of the paper “cold”, “seductive” indicates as much.

There are other major problems with the approach this research takes: cultural norms can dictate not just a first party might share, but the obligations incurred when a second party shares with a first. These, and not selfishness per se, can influence whether a person shares, because they are unwilling to impose a reciprocal obligation on a stranger. The participants are not playing with their own money. They are playing with absurdly small sums of money. I could go on. Suffice to say, this paper is weak.

By: Anna B

Anna B — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:39:39 +0000

In one of the paragraphs you posted this question: Does rapid-fire decision-making actually foment cooperation, or are selfless decisions just quicker to make? I don’t know what deduction should be. For me both still could be truth. May I ask you for a comment? Thank you very much

By: Joseph Hertzlinger

Joseph Hertzlinger — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 03:20:39 +0000

Have they examined sadistic or vindictive behavior as well? Some people are willing to take a loss if it means others have more of a loss. Do they make quick decisions?

By: David Hobby

David Hobby — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 01:28:12 +0000

Hi. In the second-to-last paragraph, it says ” And more importantly, no one showed the opposite trend—no one cooperated more when they made intuitive rather than reflective decisions.” Could this be meant the other way around?

By: AG

AG — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 23:23:25 +0000

That fits the pattern of panhandling. High SES give less than low. Obviously high SES will more likely to think than act in sight of any thing.

It will be interesting to see how people react to threat. It is most likely high IQ people will hesitate.

By: Dave Nussbaum

Dave Nussbaum — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 20:49:36 +0000

Here’s a paper that people might find relevant, given Rand’s findings about “things outside the lab” affecting people’s likelihood of cooperation. These studies show that people’s behavior can be strongly influenced by their basic expectations about the nature of the game (and how other people are likely to play). The take away, at least to me, is that in the fast/slow vein in which Ed’s article begins, we often have an intuitive response that we can adjust (if we have the opportunity) — Rand’s findings suggest that in the context he studied the immediate reflexive response was cooperative. Certainly interesting, and could be interpreted optimistically, but with all the usual caveats.

Abstract

Two experiments, one conducted with American college students and one with Israeli pilots and their instructors, explored the predictive power of reputation-based assessments versus the stated “name of the game” (Wall Street Game vs. Community Game) in determining players’ responses in an N-move Prisoner’s Dilemma. The results of these studies showed that the relevant labeling manipulations exerted far greater impact on the players’ choice to cooperate versus defect—both in the first round and overall—than anticipated by the individuals who had predicted their behavior. Reputation-based prediction, by contrast, failed to discriminate cooperators from defectors. A supplementary questionnaire study showed the generality of the relevant short-coming in naïve psychology. The implications of these findings, and the potential contribution of the present methodology to the classic pedagogical strategy of the demonstration experiment, are discussed.

http://psp.sagepub.com/content/30/9/1175.abstract