Los Angeles Times - 31.10.2019

B2 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2019 LATIMES.COM

For Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019

Mega Millions

Mega number is bold

4-9-17-27-39—Mega 22

Jackpot:$105 million

California winners per category:

No. of

winners

Amount

of prize(s)

5 + Mega 0 —

50—

4 + Mega 3 $5,

457$

3 + Mega 120 $

3 3,384 $

2 + Mega 2,183 $

1 + Mega 15,423 $

Mega only 34,843 $

Winning jackpot ticket(s) sold in other

states: None

For Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2019

SuperLotto Plus

Mega number is bold

27-34-35-36-40—Mega 13

Jackpot:$23 million

Powerball

Powerball number is bold

19-22-52-56-67—Powerball 21

Jackpot:$140 million

Fantasy Five: 5-10-14-20-

Daily Four: 9-2-0-

Daily Three (midday): 7-9-

Daily Three (evening): 2-5-

Daily Derby:

(7) Eureka

(2) Lucky Star

(3) Hot Shot

Race time: 1:46.

Results on the internet:

http://www.latimes.com/lottery

General information:

(800) 568-

(Results not available at this number)

Lottery results

about the ways that free

goods affect kids’ decision

making.

Tasoff and his graduate

students came up with a

two-part plan to test

whether costumes con-

nected to the trick-or-treat-

ers’ propensity to cheat. Go-

ing in, they suspected that

kids wearing “good guy” cos-

tumes would be more honest

than those wearing the “bad

guy” outfits.

One part involved asking

trick-or-treaters about their

costumes: Who are you to-

day? Is that a “good guy” or a

“bad guy”? Do you do good

developed alongside deviant

activities such as mingling

with other social classes,

having secret affairs and

generally partying it up.)

Tasoff wasn’t the first be-

havioral economist to turn

All Hallow’s Eve into a

scientific project. Dean

Karlan at Northwestern

University has engaged

trick-or-treaters to study

their tolerance of ambiguity,

the influence of Michelle

Obama on their healthy eat-

ing choices, and various

other questions. Dan Ariely

of Duke University has en-

listed candy-seekers to learn

To the 544 trick-or-treat-
ers who walked up to Joshua
Tasoff ’s porch in Monrovia,
it was just a stormy Hallow-
een night replete with cos-
tumes and candy.
To Tasoff, it was the per-
fect setting for a science ex-
periment.
A behavioral economist
at Claremont Graduate Uni-
versity, Tasoff was curious
about the ways in which cos-
tumes might affect some-
one’s identity and their ethi-
cal choices. He thought he
might be able to see it in ac-
tion by testing whether the
costumes children wore had
any influence on their pro-
pensity to cheat in a simple
game.
“You have all these kids
that are getting dressed up
in costumes once on a year,”
Tasoff said. “I thought, ‘This
is a golden opportunity — I
have to do something.’”
Clothes make the man, as
they say, and there’s evi-
dence that they influence
behavior as well. For in-
stance, researchers have
found that lab coats can
make the wearer perform
better on attention-related
tasks, and that school uni-
forms seem to reduce disci-
plinary referrals.
If lab coats and uniforms
could make a difference,
what about a full-blown cos-
tume?
Costumes have coincided
with anomalous behavior
since Halloween’s earliest
days, Tasoff said. The holi-
day is derived from
Samhain, a Celtic spiritual
festival in which pranksters
donned costumes to hide
their identities.
(It’s not the only occasion
when apparel and antics in-
tersect: The Venetian mask-
wearing Carnival tradition

things or evil things? (Chil-

dren were also asked how old

they were, and a researcher

wrote down other relevant

information, including their

genders and whether par-

ents accompanied them.)

The other part involved a

game. The trick-or-treaters

were handed a cup that con-

tained a traditional six-

sided die. They were told to

shake the cup and see what

number came up. Any num-

ber from 1 to 5 would earn

them one candy; a 6 would

earn them two candies.

Here was the key: the

trick-or-treaters were told

that no one else would check

the cup. Only they would

know the true number on

the top of the die.

So last Halloween, chil-

dren were randomly as-

signed to one of two lines in

front of Tasoff ’s house. In

one, kids were asked about

their costumes before they

played the game. In the

other, the questions came at

the end, when it was too late

to influence how the kids

played. About 24% of the

costumes were bad guys, ac-

cording to their wearers; 74%

said they were good guys,

and 2% said they were both

or neither.

The researchers didn’t

check to see whether each

trick-or-treater cheated.

But it was clear that cheat-

ing had occurred: With a 1-

in-6 chance of rolling a six, a

group of honest players

should have reported that

result — and claimed an ex-

tra candy — only 16.7% of the

time.

Instead, when trick-or-

treaters played the game be-

fore answering questions

about their costumes, the

ones dressed as good guys

said they got a six 45% of the

time, and those dressed as

bad guys reported a six 68%

of the time.

But to the researchers’

surprise, when trick-or-

treaters answered the cos-

tume questions first — that

is, when they were primed to

think about their costumed

identity — the pattern

flipped: kids dressed as good

guys claimed to have rolled a

six 59% percent of the time,

while those dressed as bad

guys said they got a six 47%

of the time.

The results could be a

sign of a phenomenon

known as moral licensing,

the researchers wrote in a

paper made public this

month. That’s when people

use their past good deeds to

justify a bad action. If the

costume questions primed

trick-or-treaters to think of

themselves as good guys,

perhaps they subcon-

sciously felt they had license

to cheat. It’s also possible

they felt they would be under

less scrutiny and thus more

likely to get away with cheat-

ing.

The children in bad-guy

costumes, on the other

hand, might have been less

inclined to cheat because

they may have felt that they

were being watched and

judged, Tasoff and his col-

leagues wrote. (The paper is

currently under review for

publication in an economics

journal, Tasoff said.)

Marta Serra Garcia, a be-

havioral economist at UC

San Diego who was not in-

volved in the experiment,

called it a creative study.

“It raises interesting

questions, so it’s definitely

thought-provoking,” she

said.

But figuring out whether

costumes were responsible

for the change in game be-

havior was a tricky question,

because the trick-or-treat-

ers chose their own cos-

tumes.

The only way to know for

sure would be to randomize

which costumes kids wear —

which can’t practically be

done.

Intriguing as the study

results were, Tasoff said he

and his crew are taking this

Halloween off. The 2018 ex-

periment involved more

than a dozen graduate stu-

dents to wrangle the trick-

or-treaters, collect the data

and otherwise manage the

logistics. By the end of the

night they had shouted

themselves hoarse.

“We need a break,” Tasoff

said. Instead, he’ll be host-

ing his students for the fes-

tive evening. “We’re going to

take it easy and enjoy the

neighborhood.”

Cheaters found in good guys’ clothing

Costumes appear to

affect trick-or-treaters’

honesty, but not like

researchers expected.

By Amina Khan

TRICK-OR-TREATERSmight be expected to behave like the characters they dress as, but a novel experi-

ment has found that children tend to play against “good guy” and “bad guy” types when candy is on the line.

Elaine ThompsonAssociated Press

gangs were involved. A de-
scription of the suspect was
not immediately available.
“Today is a very tragic
and horrific day in the city of
Long Beach,” Long Beach
Mayor Robert Garcia said.
“This was a senseless act of
gun violence.”
When officers arrived at
the scene, they found vic-
tims inside and outside the
residence. Some of the par-
tygoers were dressed in cos-
tume for Halloween, said
Long Beach police spokes-
woman Jennifer De Prez.
Three men were killed in
the shooting. Two men and
seven women were hurt;

their conditions were not im-

mediately available. The in-

jured range in age from 20 to

49, De Prez said.

Police said there might

be additional victims who

took themselves to the hos-

pital. It is not clear how

many people were at the

home when shots rang out

or what led to the gunfire.

Richard Villalobos, 41,

who doesn’t live far from the

home, said he heard numer-

ous gunshots followed in

under 10 minutes by sirens.

Some residents said they

heard up to 20 shots. Os-

waldo Morales, 47, said he

was in the area when he

heard what sounded like

several rounds of gunfire —

as many as 17 shots.

Then “silence — you

didn’t hear a thing,” he said

— until fire and police vehi-

cles came through minutes

later.

Times staff writer Colleen

Shalby contributed to this

report.

Gunfire

kills 3

at Long

Beach

party

RESCUE WORKERSassist a woman Tuesday night at the scene of a shooting in Long Beach that left three

partygoers dead and nine or more injured. At least one suspect fled the scene and is at large.

OnScene.TV

[Shooting,from B1]

The Orange County
district attorney’s office
charged five UC Irvine fra-
ternity brothers Wednesday
with misdemeanors in
the alcohol poisoning death
of an underage fraternity
member in January.
Noah Domingo, 18, a
freshman at UCI, joined the
Sigma Alpha Epsilon frater-
nity a few months before his
death early Jan. 12 following
the group’s “Big Brother
Night.”
A toxicology report said
his blood-alcohol level was
about 0.33% at the time of
his death. No other substan-
ces were detected in Domin-
go’s system, the county

Sheriff ’s Department said in

March.

Zavier Larenz Brown, 21;

Jonathan Anephi Vu, 22; Mo-

hamed Ibragim Kharaev, 21;

Caleb Gavin Valleroy, 20;

and Jonathan Gabriel Villi-

cana, 21, were charged with

one misdemeanor count

each of violating Irvine city

code by allowing a party or

gathering where underage

drinking was permitted. All

five were on the lease of an

off-campus fraternity house

in Irvine.

Brown also was charged

with one misdemeanor

count of furnishing alcohol

to a minor causing great

bodily injury.

Vu also was charged with

one misdemeanor count of

furnishing an alcoholic bev-

erage to a minor.

Officials said there was

no evidence that any of the

defendants had engaged in

hazing in connection with

Domingo’s death.

If convicted on all counts,

Brown could face a maxi-

mum sentence of 18 months

in jail. Kharaev, Vu, Valleroy

and Villicana could face a

maximum of six months.

The Sigma Alpha Epsilon

chapter at UCI was sus-

pended by the fraternity’s

national organization.

“Providing alcohol to

those under the legal drink-

ing age is reckless and dan-

gerous, especially in an

environment that is notori-

ous for excessive drinking

by young people who may

not understand the poten-

tial risks of their behavior,”

Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer

said in a statement Wednes-

day.

“Unfortunately, current

law prevented prosecutors

from filing anything more

than a misdemeanor in this

case,” Spitzer said. “The fur-

nishing of alcohol to a minor

that results in great bodily

injury or death should be a

felony, and the Orange

County district attorney’s

office is pursuing legislation

to make that change.”

The five defendants are

scheduled for an arraign-

ment hearing Nov. 21.

Nguyen writes for Times

Community News.

UCI fraternity brothers charged in death

Five members face

misdemeanor counts

after freshman died

of alcohol poisoning.

By Lilly Nguyen

NOAH DOMINGO joined the Sigma Alpha Epsilon

fraternity a few months before his death in January.