MOCKINGBIRD

I participated in a psychological experiment today. I was deceived, but at least I got $3.75 out of it. It is a little complicated, so bear with me.

I sat down at a table opposite another dude. We were given the following rules:
1. One person will be player A, the other will be player B.
2. Player A will receive 10 quarters. He may keep as a many as he wants, and put as many as he wants into an envelope.
3. The quarters put in the envelope will be tripled and given to player B.
4. Player B may now divide up the quarters as he sees fit and send as many as he wants back to player A, keeping the rest for himself.

For those of you keeping track at home, the most equitable situation would be for player A to send all 10 quarters and for player B to split the resulting 30 quarters in half, resulting in 15 quarters per person.

Experimenter dude let us sit and discuss strategy for a minute. We both agreed to do the most equitable thing, and also acknowledged that even if we were planning to screw the other guy we wouldn't have said it. The experimenter returned and held out a tupperware with two slips of paper in it and told us each to draw one. We were instructed not to open it in order to avoid "awkwardness." We took our slips and my counterpart was escorted to a separate room.

I opened up my slip and discovered that I was player A. I was a little bummed about this, because I had wanted to count up my 30 quarters and toy with player A's fate in my head. As it was, I just tossed all 10 quarters in and sent it off.

As I was waiting there, I noticed that there was an animal-themed word find laying on the table. Of course I started to fill it out. I was so busy circling "PARAKEET" and "WHALE" that I barely had time to push the word find aside when experimenter guy came back in. I'm not sure why I tried to act like I wasn't doing the word find. There's a psychological question for you--was I worried that I was breaking some kind of rule? Was the word find even supposed to be there?

In any case, the experimenter gave me the envelope back from player B. Lo and behold, it contained only 2 quarters. What a shithead, I said to myself. Keeping $7 in quarters all to himself. Then I realized that I very well might have done the same thing and I felt a little more understanding.

The experimenter asked me to move over to a computer on a nearby table, where I completed a little electronic survey about my feelings, rating statements on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). They were all "I feel betrayed by the other player" and "I hope something bad happens to him/her." I think my feelings of "Eh, it's $3" were pretty well conveyed.

THEN I played a little computer game, vaguely reminiscent of the Jack Attack from the excellent computer trivia game You Don't Know Jack. I was given four categories of words: self (I, me, my, mine, self), other (their, them, they, other), respect words (worthy, strong, respectable, etc), and disrespect words (weak, despicable, disrespectful, etc.). Before each round I was given a set of one or two categories (self, other and respect, self and disrespect, etc.), and I was only to press the space bar when those words came up, ignoring the other words.

After a few rounds of that, experimenter guy showed up and explained that the other player had felt guilty and had sent me some more quarters. The envelope he handed me this time had another 10 quarters in it.

The experimenter typed in some password and a filled in another survey, this one all about if I forgave the other player for his transgression or not. I pretty much did. Then I did some more word association reaction time games, and then worked on the animal word find some more.

I got pretty paranoid about the word find. I was certain that it was the true focus of the test.

Other guy came in with experimenter dude and we were debriefed. As it turned out, both slips said "player A" on them, and we both got only two quarters back, and then got 10 more when "player B felt guilty." In some other trials, the participants will not get the extra 10 quarters. As someone who just took his first Intro to Psych exam, I can tell you that that's your independent variable right there.

I guess the hypothesis was that IF you didn't get any more quarters and IF you indicated that you still forgave the other player, you would do better on the "self/disrespect" rounds than on the "self/respect" rounds.

Then, for "ethical reasons," we both got 15 quarters. I plan to use it to launder my sheets.

My sister and her roommate Elise, who sit around all day and talk about psychology, were skeptical about the validity of the experiment. I still think it should have been about the word find.

P.S.: The wet shaving supplies arrived the other day and yesterday I did my first wet shave. Conclusion: it felt cool, but I did not get a very close shave. I think I need some practice. For now, check out this hilariously insulting "Are you a straight razor guy or a safety razor guy?" Jeff Foxworthy-style page from www.classicshaving.com, your one stop shop for all your shaving needs. It makes me (a "safety razor guy") sound like a squealing ninny.