Invitation to Psychology

Chapter 7 Thinking and Intelligence 237

making, but because there is (as yet) no Nobel

Prize in psychology, he won it in economics. This

was a delicious irony, because many economists

still have a difficult time accepting the evidence of

human irrationality.

Why does a desire for fair play sometimes out-

weigh the desire for economic gain? Evolutionary

theorists believe that cooperative tendencies and a

desire for fairness and reciprocity evolved because

they enhanced the survival of early human groups

(Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Trivers, 2004). The

idea that the Golden Rule has a basis in biology

has gained support from research with nonhu-

man primates. In one study, capuchin monkeys

received a token that they could then exchange

for a slice of cucumber. The monkeys regarded

this exchange as a pretty good deal—until they

saw a neighboring monkey exchanging tokens for

an even better reward, a grape. At that point, they

began to refuse to exchange their tokens, even

though they were then left with no reward at all

(Brosnan & de Waal, 2003). Sometimes they even

threw the cucumber slice on the ground in appar-

ent disgust!

at least you will get something. But that is not
how people respond when playing the Ultimatum
Game: If the offer is too low, they are likely to
reject it. In industrial societies, offers of 50 per-
cent are typical and offers below 20 or 30 percent
are commonly rejected, even when the absolute
sums are large. In other societies, the amounts
offered and accepted may be higher or lower, but
there is always some amount that people consider
unfair and refuse to accept (Henrich et al., 2001).
People may be competitive and love to win, but
they are also powerfully motivated to cooperate
and to see fairness prevail.
Using the Ultimatum Game and other labo-
ratory games, scientists are exploring how a sense
of fairness often takes precedence over ratio-
nal self-interest when people make economic
choices. Their work, which belongs to a field
called behavioral economics, verifies and extends the
pioneering work of Nobel Prize winner Herbert
Simon (1955), who first showed that economic
decisions are not always rational. Cognitive psy-
chologist Daniel Kahneman also won a Nobel for
his work on the irrational processes of decision

PROBLEM 1

First program Second program

100% probability that 1/3 are saved 1/3 probability that all are saved

2/3 probability that nobody is saved

PROBLEM 2

First program Second program

100% probability that 2/3 die 1/3 probability that nobody dies

2/3 probability that all die

FIGuRE 7.1 A Matter of Wording
The decisions we make often depend on how the alternatives are framed. When asked to choose between the two pro-
grams in Problem 1, which are described in terms of lives saved, most people choose the first program. When asked
to choose between the programs in Problem 2, which are described in terms of lives lost, most people choose the sec-
ond program. Yet the alternatives in the two problems are actually identical.