Chimpanzee Economics

Here's an interesting link :  Chimpanzee Economics.

It's title is actually much longer and so I simplified it. The basic premise is that chimpanzees act in a truly selfish economic way, as would be predicted by traditional economic models. Humans do not. We would rather screw ourselves in order to screw the other guy. We would rather get nothing than have an "unfair" division of goods. That behavior is not something that can be accounted for in economic theory.

The name of the game is The Ultimatum Game, and it goes something like this. You are presented with a potential reward. This is free "manna from Heaven." But the presenter gets to decide how to split this manna from Heaven. He or she can give you something approaching an equal split. Or he can be magnanimous and give you more. Or he can be stingy and give you much less, keeping more for himself. And each time, the amount offered can change.

Your only choice is to accept or to reject the offer. But here's the catch. If you reject the offer, then you reject for the both of you. If you reject, then neither of you gets anything. And here's the important point. None of you are entitled to this free reward. It is undeserved.You had no right to it! If you had never known about it, you would never have gotten upset to have missed out on it.

What would you do? How would you play this game? Would you laugh and say, "Hey. It's all free. I don't care who gets more as long as I get something. That way, I will always end up ahead. I will always walk out with more than I started with." That is what traditional economics would predict. That you would act in your own long-term best interests and take those small rewards, letting them accumulate. Letting them slowly build up until you have a large stack of winnings. That is what "selfish" economics would predict you should do because getting something, even a small amount, is better that getting nothing. And that is what chimpanzees do!

But we humans do not play the game that way. Instead, we play the Retribution Game. Even though this is all free and we have no right to it, we make a social judgment that this largesse should be divided equally. That I am entitled to get my fair share. And so we accept an equal division. We cheerfully accept a "mistake"- an unequal division that's in our favor. But we angrily refuse an unequal division in the other person's favor. (It's actually not as simplistic as just presented.) We "keep score" and, as long as the "mistakes" even out, or are in our favor, we stay in the game. But when it starts to move towards an unequal distribution that favors the other guy, then we shift to playing the Retribution Game.

As I said, we are quite cheerfully willing to screw ourselves in order to screw the other guy.

Now ask yourself, "Why?"

Powered by Qumana