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.