Cogito ergo Sum
Today, dear friends, I’ve participated in my first economic experiment. Even though I know you’re all dying to know more about my super-interesting day at university performing in said experiment, I feel we should start this post with something a little easier, like for instance proving that god exists.
Right, for all you non-Christians out there, get ready to convert.
We humans have a notion of something perfect. This perfect notion must, in itself, be perfect. Humans on the other hand, are far from perfect, our senses deceive us, and we are haunted by doubt and fear. We can also assume that this notion we have of something perfect is a perfect notion, and a perfect notion cannot be created by something imperfect, because that would mean that there is more in the effect then in the cause. This is unacceptable seeing as how nothing can be created from nothing. In other words, an imperfect being cannot conjure up an image of a perfect being. The perfect notion of the perfect can only be created by something perfect.
This means that when we humans experience the perfect notion of the perfect, it must be caused by something perfect, in other words, God. A perfect god would not trick humans, because a creature that uses tricks is not perfect. This means, in other words, that god exists, and he instills the picture of the perfect into our minds, without trickery.
Simple
Anyway, now when that is out of the way, let’s get down to some serious (economic) business. As I’ve already mentioned, I put on my bunny ears and participated in an economic experiment earlier today. We were about 60 people, split into two groups of 30, there was no contact between the groups and we were assigned to different rooms.
I was in group B. We were installed into each our cubicle and were given a piece of paper each to read ( – there would be no talking to anyone through the duration of the experiment). The paper told us that group A (the guys in the other room) would each receive 50 Norwegian kroner and a green piece of paper. They would then be given two options; they could put either the 50 kroner note or the green piece of paper into an envelope. If they put the green piece of paper into the envelope, they could keep the 50 kroner. The envelope would be handed to a random person in our group (group B), the amount of money in it however (50 kroner) would be multiplied by five. This meant that members of group B would either receive an envelope with 250 kroner, or a green piece of paper. If a member of group B received the green piece of paper, he was out of the experiment, and could do nothing. If he however received the 250 kroner he could withdraw as much money he wanted from the envelope before he sent the rest back to the person from group A who sent him the envelope in the first place.
So this experiment was all about trust, members from group A gave up their chance of getting a free 50 kroner note, in the hopes of getting more money from their group B counterparts. It’s probably worth mentioning this experiment was completely anonymous, so no one would ever know how much money was sent back by group B to group A. Group B members could send back 0, 50, 100, 150, 200, or 250 kroner, the amount they didn’t send back, they could keep for themselves.
How much money would you send back? You could keep all for yourself, but that would mean that the person from group A who trusted you enough to give up his free money would get nothing, and would, in fact, lose money. However, the person from group A would never know who took the money, as everything was anonymous.
Make up your mind before you read the next paragraph, would you keep all the money to yourself, or would you give something back to the person in group A?
As I figured it, the person from group A took all the risk, so he should be entitled to at least 150 kroner, on the other hand, this person was anonymous to us; we would never know who we gave the money to, and he would never know our name if we chose not to give up any money. I am not going to say how much money I sent back to person A, because then you would probably stop reading my blog. But in all seriousness, how much would you give up?
After we’d made up our minds about how much money we wanted to keep, we threw the sealed envelope (with the remainder of the money) into a secured crate and were let out of the room, only to see the members of group A exciting from their room at the same time. This puzzled me, should not group A wait to receive their envelopes? I went over to a person from group A and asked him about this, after a confusing minute of conversation, it struck me. There was no group A, both groups had been given the same exact task, and both groups had been given 250 kroner in the envelope. The amount given away had not gone to some other student, but right back to the university. We were fooled!
Next week we will be taught the point behind this experiment, and how much money was lost trying to share. Even though this little experiment earned me some free kroner, I can’t help thinking the University is trying to turn us into hardcore greedy economists who won’t share money with anyone. In this experiment, the less we listened to our moral, the more we were rewarded!
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