The Upside of Irrationality

rationally and selfishly. So when they play the ultimatum game, economic senders think that the right thing to do is to propose a $19:$1 split, and—since they are trained to think that acting rationally is the right thing to do—the economic recipients accept the offer. But when economists play with noneconomists, they’re deeply disappointed when their uneven offers are rejected. Given these differences, I suspect that you can decide for yourself what kinds of games you want to play with fully rational economists and which ones you would rather play with irrational human beings.

IN OUR PARTICULAR game, the starting amount was $10.

About two hundred participants were told that the sender was just another participant, but, in reality, the uneven splits of $7.50:$2.50 came from Eduardo and me (we did this because we wanted to ensure that all the offers were the same and that they were all unfair). Now, if an anonymous person offered you such a deal, would you take it? Or would you give up $2.50 in order to make him lose $7.50? Before you answer, consider how your response might change if I preloaded your thoughts with some incidental emotions, as psychologists call them.

Let’s say you are in the group of participants in the anger condition. You begin the experiment by watching a clip from a movie called Life as a House. In the clip, the architect, played

by Kevin Kline, is fired by his jerk of a boss after twenty years on the job. Royally pissed off, he grabs a baseball bat and destroys the lovely miniature architectural models of the houses he’s made for the company. You can’t help but feel for the guy.

After the clip is over, the experimenter asks you to write down a personal experience that is similar to the clip you just watched.

You might remember the time when, as a teenager, you worked at a convenience store and the boss unfairly accused you of 259