Unnamed comments on LessWrong Survey Results: Do Ethical Theories Affect Behavior? - Less Wrong

18 Post author: peter_hurford 19 December 2012 08:40AM

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Comment author: gwern 19 December 2012 05:19:54PM 2 points [-]

Logging the total charity donations:

R> lw2012 <- read.csv("2012.csv")
R> consequentialism <- lw2012[as.integer(lw2012$MoralViews) == 2,]
R> consequentialism <- log1p(as.integer(as.character(consequentialism$Charity)))
R> consequentialism <- consequentialism[!is.na(consequentialism) & consequentialism != 0]
R> others <- lw2012[as.integer(lw2012$MoralViews) != 2,]
R> others <- log1p(as.integer(as.character(others$Charity)))
R> others <- others[!is.na(others) & others != 0]
R> t.test(consequentialism, others)
Welch Two Sample t-test
data: consequentialism and others
t = 1.687, df = 411.6, p-value = 0.09238
alternative hypothesis: true difference in means is not equal to 0
95 percent confidence interval:
-0.04613 0.60421
sample estimates:
mean of x mean of y
5.241 4.962
Comment author: Unnamed 20 December 2012 02:03:22AM 1 point [-]

It looks like you threw out the people who gave 0 to charity when you took the log. I typically use ln(x+1) for these types of variables, which maps zero to zero.

In this case, your approach leads to stronger effects (or at least lower p values). Repeating your analysis with the full data set (n=575), it's actually statistically significant on its own (Welch t=2.03, p=.043), means of 5.25 vs. 4.92. Excluding non-givers also gives lower p-values in the analyses I described here; when controlling just for age the effect of consequentialism is significant at p=.001 (geometric means $204 vs. $121). Even though the trend is for consequentialists to be more likely to give than non-consequentialists, it looks like the added noise of having all those points at zero has a bigger effect.

Comment author: gwern 20 December 2012 02:15:00AM 3 points [-]

I threw out zero because it seems like a non-response to me in a lot of questions. Someone giving a number shows they have at least responded with a non-default and did donate something, while someone leaving a zero may be simply equivalent to people who left empty responses.

(While I'm commenting on my analysis: from a utilitarian perspective, comparing logs doesn't even make sense; personal utility may follow some sort of logarithm in money, but charities don't - the problems are just too big for any one person.)

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