bbleeker comments on Misleading the witness - Less Wrong

14 Post author: Bo102010 09 August 2009 08:13PM

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Comment author: PhilGoetz 10 August 2009 02:51:59AM *  5 points [-]

Re. the linked article about the cognitive confusion test:

80 percent of high-scoring men would pick a 15 percent chance of $1 million over a sure $500, compared with only 38 percent of high-scoring women, 40 percent of low-scoring men and 25 percent of low-scoring women.

Wow. That's the most mind-blowing thing I've read in a while. I can't think of a good explanation for anyone picking the $500, let alone the male-female difference. Maybe they assume that someone might actually give them $500, but the $1M is a scam. And how does this square with the idea that poor people play the lottery more?

Princeton students scored a mean of 1.63. Heh.

Comment author: MattFisher 22 August 2009 09:50:13AM 4 points [-]

One reason people might pick the $500 is because they'll come out better off than 85% of people who take the more rational course. It is little comfort to be able to claim to have made the right decision when everyone who made the less rational decision is waving a stack of money in your face and laughing at the silly rationalist. People don't want to be rich - they just want to be richer than their next door neighbour.

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