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TRANSCRIPT
Giving it all Away:Altruism and Answers to the Wason
Selection Task
PRESENTED BY:Ngoc Tran & Laura Crandall
Outline Cognitive Modules
› Background
Wason Selection Task› Purpose› Puzzles vs Social Contract problems
Fiddick & Erlich’s Paper› Introduction› Methods› Results› Discussion
Cognitive Modules
Our minds consist primarily of “a constellation of specialized mechanisms that have domain-specific procedures, operate over domain-specific representations, or both” - Cosmides and Tooby (1994), p. 94
Wason Selection Task
People struggle to identify what information is necessary in order to test the truth of a logical-reasoning problem. › Wason Selection Task is used to examine this issue.
Typical experiment: presents a rule and asks subjects how to find out if the rule is violated.› Abstract problems: difficult to answer correctly› Social contract problems: more likely to be answered
correctly
Abstract Problem
If a card has a D on one side, it has a 3 on the other side.
What card(s) should you flip over to determine if the rule is true?
Correct answer: D and 7. Seeing reverse of 3 can confirm rule but won’t disprove it.
Social Contract Problem
If you borrow my car, you must fill up the gas tank.
What card(s) should you flip over to determine if the rule is true?
Correct answer: borrowed car and empty gas tank. People reason correctly when confronted with social
contract problem.
(Laurence Fiddick & Nicole Erlich, 2010)
Giving it all Away:Altruism and Answers to the Wason
Selection Task
Introduction Cosmides’ study showed elevated levels of
performance on cheater detection tasks (1989)
› Suggests humans have cheater-detector mechanisms
Detecting altruism ≠ tracking cooperation› Cooperator accepts benefit and pays cost› Altruist pays cost without accepting benefits› Cheater accepts benefits without paying cost
Detecting Altruists vs. Cheaters
Different ways of maintaining cooperation with cheaters and cooperators depending on if rewards or punishment used› Punishing lack of cooperation more
effective› Generous behavior usually unrewarded› Supports idea that mechanisms to
detect cheaters will be more useful in maintaining cooperation
Detecting Altruists vs. Cheaters
Studies seem to support that people are better at detecting cheaters
Some researchers challenge idea that people are better at cheater-detection; believe people should also have mechanisms to detect altruists too.
Other studies have shown people have ability to detect altruists (Brown & Moore, 2000).› Enhanced altruism detection may be a way
to detect people who are “fake” altruists.
Confounds in Altruism-detection
Altruism-detection tasks in multiple studies contain embedded answers.› Ex. “You suspect that Big Kiku will be
altruistic and give food even if the man does not get a tattoo. (Evans & Chang, 1998)
Oda et al., 2006 Interested in whether enhanced
altruism detection is a way to detect “fake” altruists.› If true, altruism detection would be govern
by same mechanism as cheater detection. › Compared altruist-detection to cheater-
detection tasks to see if there was an association.
Subjects performed better on altruist-detection tasks despite absence embedded answers.
Cheater-detection task confounded with embedded answers.
Wording of cheater-detection scenarios may have affected subjects’ answers.
Current study
Wanted to address confounds of previous studies › Are embedded cues why subjects
performance better on some altruist-detection task?
Questioned existence of altruist-detection mechanism.
The Three Experiments
Experiment #1: Answers embedded in questions presented potential confound› Used (non-)embedded answers to test whether
embedded answers were a confound, which would undermine support for cognitive modules for cheater detection
Experiment #2: revised published altruist-detection problems to remove embedded answers› Results indicated embedded answers are a confound for
altruism detection
The Three Experiments
Experiment #3: based on findings by Oda et al.› Tested whether altruism detection is a form of
cheater detection or independent of cheating module› Methodological issues present possible confounds
May not be a special altruism detection module
Experiment 1: embedded selection task answers
Participants Materials
› Booklet with 4 selection tasks Weather, Hare Mantra, abstract, social contract
› 2 versions: embedded & non-embedded answer Procedure
Experiment 1: Results
“The results suggest that embedding the answer within the selection task scenario can
significantly alter performance on the task, at least when the scenario does not involve cheater
detection.”
Embedding answer improves performance on tasks that do not try to detect cheaters
Experiment 2: embedded altruism detection task answers
Researchers removed embedded text to see effect on altruism detection ability
Participants Materials
› Booklet with 3 altruism detection tasks Blood donation, altruist cassava root, generous uncle
Procedure
Experiment 2: ResultsNSS NSS SS
“As predicted, removing the embedded solutions from these altruist-detection problems did have
a significant influence on performance.”
Fiddick & Erlich argue that removing embedded solutions prevented subjects from identifying altruists
Did removing embedded solutions prevent altruist detection? Results were statistically significant after pooling data
Experiment 3: Revisiting Oda et al.
Results of Oda et al.› Tested whether altruism detection is a form of
cheater detection or independent of cheater-detection module
› Argued for separate cheater/altruist detection mechanisms
Fiddick & Erlich: attempted to replicate results with a non-confounded cheater-detection scenario
Experiment 3: Materials and procedure
Cheater-detection booklet› Sticker task
Altruist-detection booklet› Volunteer task
Two groups of participants; one received cheater-detection booklet first and the other received the altruist-detection booklet first
Experiment 3: Results
Participants performed significantly better on the cheater-detection task (58.5% correct) than on the altruist-detection task (20.0% correct)› No correlation between performance (r = -0.047)› When cheater detection task was first, r = +0.472› When altruist detection task was first, r = -0.472
Why should cheater detection prime altruist detection?
Discussion
Embedded solutions do confound results (Exp 1 & 2).
Elimination of confounds in exp 2 did not completely reduce altruist-detection levels.› Non-standard instructions may affect
subject performance.› Categorization task (altruist-detection)
vs. rule violations (cheater-detection)
Discussion
Exp 3 also suggests that altruist-detection may prime cheater-detection› Challenges findings of Oda et al. study› Rule-following methodology of Oda et
al. study may reduce performance on cheater-detection tasks.
Conclusion
Conclude lack of evidence supporting existence of an altruist detection mechanism.
Many social contract theory (SCT) studies confounded by having embedded answers.