Quick question...

[silversolitaire]

Imagine this. Someone offers you and someone else 100 bucks. The other person gets to decide on a mode of splitting it up and you have the choice to either accept or reject the deal. The other person offers you splitting it 7/3 (i.e. he gets 70%, you get 30% of the amount).

[Poll #345971]

Answer this spontaneously please.

Comments

[seal7.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, this really only works in a certain amount range. If we were talking about, say, 10 000 or more, I don't think I'd reject 3000 if I had no way of a) getting rid of the other person or b) arguing about the splitting.
And I can still buy my own bread so I can afford to reject 30 free bucks... there might be people who can't.

It's still interesting though, I dunno if it quite works as proof that people aren't as greedy as is commonly assumed... maybe a little, though.

[silversolitaire.livejournal.com]

You're right, the amount definitely plays in. Like you said, 3 bucks is trivial and you ignore it. Who cares. 30 bucks is kinda nice to have, but still it's worth rejecting it to make a point or just be annoying. 300... who'd give up 300 just like that unless you're really rich? 3000? No way! And after that, of course not! So yeah, it really only works in the range of "kinda nice to pad up the pocket book a bit".

I don't think you can actually draw any conclusions from that, at least not on such a general basis such as "People aren't greedy". If at all I think you could say that people tend to feel stronger about justice when smaller amounts of money are involved and at some point they just go "Ah what the heck, just give me the money, you greedy bastard". Which might perhaps say that your sense of justice can be bought... nyahaha.