Here's a simple game I would like you to play... and if you can please leave your responses as comments, it will be awesome. If you do not want your response to be published for some reason, that's OK too... just let me know.
The game is this: I give you a random partner to play the game with. Then, I give you five hundred rupees. You need to offer part of this money to your partner. The partner can choose to accept or reject your offer. If he/she rejects your offer, you both lose all the money. If he/she accepts your offer, you both get to keep the money.
The question is: how much money will you offer your partner?
Let me know!
16 comments:
What's this mate? Sounds like one of those economics related schemes or scams :). Or maybe psychological - how much are you prepared to give - greed measurement?
A clarification - giving a part of money to the partner and if it is accepted, do both get to keep "that" amount that has been given to them?
e.g if I give Rs 250 and is accepted, then both get Rs 250?
Any takers for 250 bucks? :)
Psychological... and it's very interesting.
And yes, if you give x, you get to keep 500-x and the partner keeps the x. If partner refuses, both lose the money and go back empty handed.
So, how much would you give?
Anonymous - why do you want to give 250?
Firstly, this is a very interesting game :)
Honestly, my biggest problem in answering this question is the amount - it's too small. So for me it's not about the money I get, it's about winning and it's about who my partner is. If it's a friend, I would offer half the amount - keep things fair.
With a stranger, I would offer a slightly higher amount - say two hundred and seventy or so. I doubt if anyone would say no to free money. In addition, the amount is not very big. So I don't lose much. But it does increase our chances of winning. If I offer less than two fifty, it's possible that my patner would refuse (since it's a small amount anyway)
On the other hand if this was a bigger amount - a lot lot more than five hundred bucks, I probably would have kept the bigger chunk for myself and offered lesser amount to my partner - There is little chance that someone would want to say no to a LOT of free money!
Harsha, think a little more :)
Let's stick to 500.
What if you offered only 50? Or only 10?
I see what you are saying - why would anyone say not to any amount of free money! And that's true too. But I just want to increase the chances of winning. What would you do?
No answers from me just yet...
Let me know your "best answer" :)
Drawing up a Karnaugh matrix (:P) , we have the following combos
1. I keep Re.1 while offering Rs 499 to my partner
2. I divide the money in two so each one gets Rs. 250
3. I keep Rs. 499 while offering Re.1 to my partner
4. I tell my partner to p*** off and keep all the money for myself
So the results of each action are as follows
1. I have offered a very large amount to my partners, so this increases the probability of acceptance to dizzying levels. But that means, I am an idiot and am left with a miniscule amount and I remind myself, I am making this huge sacrifice only becoz your partner is good looking(assuming she is female) and there is a 1:499 chance that you might become soulmates. :)
2. This is a fair deal. The chances of acceptance are quite good, perhaps the highest
depending on the greed of the partner. But whatever, there isn’t a loser and both go home happy with the male thinking of spending it on drinks and sex while the female buys things like mascara, eyeliners , soft toys and other things which humans cannot live without.
3. Ah, now this is what I call a rough deal with the least chance of acceptance. No point in going ahead with this unless your partner has the brains of a frying pan. You are bound to lose all the money in this blatant show of greediness and eagerness to get drunk or get laid. Moreover since you don’t know your partner , he/she might conjure up a gun and shoot you in the head while putting that one rupee coin as a token on your now brainless head.
4. This is the don’t-care variable which means it is not even an option. You have to play by the rules. On being asked by the other guy why he/she is being asked to leave, the reply would be that you are facing a credit crunch but your horoscope mentions that you were going to receive money today and that is why you have decided to keep it for the betterment of economy in general. Ofcourse you hadn’t read the rest of the horoscope, that you were about to be run over by car driven by Ramalinga Raju, who has just escaped from jail.
Ok nuff said. I will go for Rs 250 just because it is rational or Rs 275 with added incentives.
Just thought I should share it equal with the person whose answer decides whether I get any money at all!
Ray, I totally LOVED your answer.
There's no correct answer, of course, but when this "test" was given to volunteers in lab tests, most participants did a 70-30 split, with the smaller portion to the partner.
But here's the interesting part...
Theoretically, even a one rupee to partner offer should be fine, because the partner gets one or nothing, and hence, should say yes. But we insist on giving more, and the question is, is this because of inherent altruism in human beings? You might be tempted to say yes.
However, as you said, when you factor the possibility that the partner might be insulted and doesn't mind losing one to hit back to you, maybe we give more simply to improve our own chances of winning.
Another question, if you want to continue...
What if I give you both 250 each, and ONLY you have the decision to make. You can now choose to TAKE some money from your partner, or you can GIVE your money to your partner, the whole amount of a part of it.
What would you do?
ps: No sex for you, no other incentives, only the cash :)
If the partner is not a friend, then I'd leave him/her with only 1 rupee :P
Been reading SuperFreakonomics have you Siddhesh?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictator_game
Of course, I said as much in my earlier post on Horses and Cars :)
You thought I was capable of coming up with these psycho thrillers myself? :)
The amount really depends on whether my partner knows about your offer ;)
If yes -then it'll be obviously 250, the safe bet.
If no - then it will as less as possible ;) but still something that my partner will accept :P
Post a Comment