Nobody Likes a Goody Two-Shoes

Summary
The term goody two-shoes is based on a children's story in which a poor orphan girl (Margery Meanwell) goes through life with only one shoe, but is eventually rewarded with a pair of shoes earning her the nickname Goody Two-Shoes. The phrase "goody two-shoes" refers to an excessively or annoyingly virtuous person, but has now come to include a connotation of insincerity (Wikipedia).

Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll go barefoot.
(Photo: Northsky71 at Flickr)

Commentary
A recent set of studies at Washington State University showed that not only are people who abuse a public good excluded from the group, but so are people who give too much toward the group, but use very little of that good. The fourth study in the set suggests that such behavior "is seen by some as establishing an undesirable behavior standard and by others as a rule breaker" (Parks & Stone, 2010). Regardless of the perception, people wanted this unselfish person removed from the group.

I'm assuming that "establishing an undesirable behavior standard" means something like "setting the bar too high" or "making me look bad." Alternatively, people might assume mixed motives and become wary of such behavior.

Meta
Do you remember a situation in which you felt someone was being too unselfish? How did you react? Have you ever noticed you were being excluded after you behaved unselfishly? What could you do differently?

See Also

• Goody Two-Shoes at Project Gutenberg for the full text of the 1766 edition of the classic children's tale.
• The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes at Wikipedia
• Do-Gooders Get Voted Off Island First at ScienceDaily for a longer discussion.
• Parks, C. D., & Stone, A. B. (2010). The desire to expel unselfish members from the group. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(2), 303-310.

Dry Water

Summary
Dry water is the result of coating small water droplets in silica. It is a powdery substance like sugar and is composed of 95% water.

Dehydrated water crystals. Just add water!
(Photo: Taran Rampersad at Flickr)

Commentary
Jokes about dehydrated water crystals aside, this is a pretty impressive technique for collecting and containing water which has been around since 1968. In 2006, it was rediscovered as a potential way to absorb carbon gases and a host of other applications.

I've got to think back to other 8^th grade jokes to see what future technology will bring.


See Also

• “Dry water” could make a big splash commercially at the American Chemical Society where the announcement of this announcement was made at the 240^th meeting in Boston.
• Scientists Create 'Dry' Water Droplets at Scientific American
• Scientists create 'dry water' at The Telegraph
  

Indigo Children

This post is based on a submission by reader Matthew Garland. Please submit suggestions for posts to metaist.blog@gmail.com.

Summary
Indigo Children are children with special traits, although the specifics of those traits ranges from "empathetic", "confident" to "mind reader".

It's almost the color of the Blue Man Group.
(Photo: kenpower at Flickr)

Commentary
According to Lee Carol, co-author of "The Indigo Children", the term was never supposed to denote anything paranormal. Rather, Nancy Ann Tappe, who coined the term, had synesthesia and associated these children with the color indigo.

Nonetheless, there is definitely an underlying argument that is completely unsubstantiated: that these children "represent a higher state of human evolution". Of course, if we take evolutionary psychology to its extreme, the children do in fact represent a higher state of human evolution (just not that much higher; probably not what the indigo folks mean).

Meta
Matthew suggests that perhaps a belief in indigo children may be related to the Forer effect and confirmation bias. What do you think?

See Also

• Indigo children at Wikipedia for more information.
• Wikipedia Warning! at the Indigo Children for a response to the Wikipedia article from Lee Carol.

Forer Effect

Summary
The Forer Effect refers to the tendency of individuals to believe that generic personality descriptions are highly accurate when being told that the descriptions are tailor-made.

Sorry, I have a schedule conflict. Could we do next sometime?
(Photo: partiallyblind at Flickr)

Commentary
Forer famously gave a group of students a personality test. Then he provided them with an individual "analysis" which the students were supposed to rank from 0 to 5 (poor to excellent). The analysis read thusly (Thanks Wikipedia!):

You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. Security is one of your major goals in life.

The average score was 4.26. It was then that Forer revealed that they all got the same text.

See Also

• Forer Effect at Wikipedia. Specifically, see Variables influencing the effect for additional criteria.
• Derren Brown - Cold Reading at YouTube for a video of Derren Brown acting strangely, but demonstrating the basics of the Forer Effect.

Prisoner's Dilemma

Definition
In game theory, the prisoner's dilemma refers to a situation in which two parties can:

1. cooperate (each gains a moderate amount),
2. defect (each looses a moderate amount), or
3. one defects (gains a large amount), the other cooperates (looses a large amount).

Cat got your tongue? If you cooperate, we can get you off on a smaller charge.
(Photo: phphoto2010 at Flickr)

Summary
I recently had an interesting experience in which I had to play 9 rounds of an iterated prisoner's dilemma as part of a large group. The process by which my group decided to behave was both enlightening and disturbing.

Background
During the summer I took a course on negotiating. On the last day of class, the professor announced we would be doing a large-scale group negotiation. He split the class into two large groups of 12 people each and provided everyone with the following information:

Each group represents a store in a town where commerce is forbidden on Sunday. For various reasons, the two stores are now considering being open on Sundays with the following ramifications:

• If both stores are closed, each makes $20,000 during the week.
• If both stores are open, the town will fine each store $20,000 for that week.
• If only one store is open, that store will make $40,000 during the week and will actually take business away from the other store for a week, so the the closed store looses $40,000 for that week.

For those of you playing along at home, here is the payoff matrix:

(You, Them)	They're Closed	They're Open
You're Open	(+$40k, -$40k)	(-$20k, -$20k)
You're Closed	(+$20k, +$20k)	(-$40k, +$40k)

The two group convene in separate classrooms where for each of the next 12 "weeks" a new representative must exit the room with a sign that says "Open" or "Closed." The two representatives have the option of negotiating for up to one minute except after weeks 4 and 8 when they must negotiate. This is because on weeks 4, 8, and 12, the profits and losses double, triple, and quadruple, respectively.

Game Play
As the twelve members of my group finished reading the assignment I pointed out that this was, indeed, the classic prisoner's dilemma game in which we can maximize our gains by cooperating, although there are short-term gains in defecting.

A fellow classmate (let's call him Bob) responded saying he did not care; he just wanted to win. I pointed out that there are a few ways of defining win in this particular circumstance. Did he mean that we should try to make as much money as we could? No. He wanted to make sure we made more money than the other team. Okay, I said, but let's focus on the short-term goal here on figuring out whether or not we should be open for week 1.

Eventually, we came to a consensus that we should be open week 1 as a precaution. As the first representative to go out, I displayed our "Open" sign to the amazement of the other team representative. I made a deal, offering to be closed for the remaining 11 weeks (as my team had proposed), and the other representative agreed-- provided that they were allowed to open the following week while we remained closed. Deal.

When I returned, the discussion picked up on a theme that might be described as "When Should We Screw Them?" Several people agreed that "we have to screw them sometime," but I was at a loss to explain my position that we should not screw them. In the meantime, we were being pressed to send out representatives for the following weeks, and we continued to abide by the agreement laid out in the first week.

Both teams remained closed for weeks 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Our group became more passionate. We tried to define what our interests were. While we could not agree what the expression "maximize your profits" (as written in the instructions) meant, we did agree on the following two principles:

1. We want to have a positive balance at the end of the game.
   
2. We want to make more money than the other team.

At this point, I raised the issue that I had a very specific interest in remaining honest. To illustrate my point, I suggested that on week 11 we tell the other team to be open week 12. I had forgotten that the losses would quadruple, for my intent was to prevent anyone from cheating on week 12 (when there would be a strong desire to cheat). This idea did not go over well ("You're willing to loose money to be honest!?"). I tried to backtrack. Okay, but now-- it's only week 8-- why should we screw them now? Let's continue to abide by our agreement. They've been abiding by the agreement so far-- let's just keep going-- we're making money, people!

Honesty or Profits
Someone calculated that if we screwed them now (week 8), and subsequently stayed open the remaining weeks (since we assume that they would stay open as well), we would still be in the black at the end of week 12, while the other team would be in the red.

We had been summoned to send a representative out for week 8 (our team was consistently late in sending someone out as our deliberations slowed us down). At this point our debate reached a fever pitch. Bob of the "I want to win" camp asked for a vote; should we choose honesty or profits (his words).

So I asked each person: "Honesty or profits?"
Profits. Profits. Profits. Profits. Profits. Profits. Honesty. Profits. Honesty. Profits. Profits. My vote was well known at this point, so I didn't even bother announcing my position. Moments later, one of the votes for "honesty" changed her mind and agreed that week 8 was an opportune time to screw the other team.

I decided that since Bob was so in favor of screwing the team "at some point, and it might as well be now" he should be the representative to go and announce that we were open. As he was walking out the door, I said "This is a stupid move; you're firing nukes on Russia-- how do you think this is going to end?" My other classmates asked me "But what if they're open?"
"If they're open," I replied, "then I'm an idiot and I was wrong. But watch, they are going to abide by the agreement, and from now on, it will just be us nuking each other." (I choose the Cold War analogy because we had all watched Thirteen Days as part of a previous assignment.)

The other team was closed and they were upset. Since negotiations had to occur, Bob tried to present the situation as "nothing personal"; that our group was "chaotic" and that it was "impossible to say how things would proceed".

On Week 9, both teams came out "Open", although the other team's sign also depicted a middle finger. Both representatives made it clear that they would remain open the remaining weeks, so the professor aborted the game and we convened for a post-session discussion.

Post-mortem
During the discussion, it became clear that the other team had plans to screw us on Week 11 (on the assumption that we would screw them on Week 12). Unlike our team, they had chosen to make liberal use of the blackboard (we used the computer screen). Their board clearly showed their train of thought: "Ethics", "Honesty Is the Best Policy" were followed up by a large "SCREW THEM!" It was pointed out that despite being told "it's just business, nothing personal" every single person on their team took it very personally.

I raised the issue of how quickly people choose "profits" over "honesty", but my fellow teammates objected on the grounds that "they were operating within the game." My professor tried to make the point that "in real-life" people tend to weigh in the consequences more and that they might be less likely to defect.

Needless to say, I did not find this reassuring.

Final Score
Despite my feeling that we had "lost" as we broke our agreement (and, in retrospect, we lost $140k in potential profits), we did satisfy the two criteria pinpointed by the group: we were in the black, and we made more money than the other team. Here is the final score:

	Us	Them
Week 1	+$40k (Open)	-$40k (Closed)
Week 2	-$40k (Closed)	+$40k (Open)
Week 3	+$20k (Closed)	+$20k (Closed)
Week 4 (double)	+$40k (Closed)	+$40k (Closed)
Week 5	+$20k (Closed)	+$20k (Closed)
Week 6	+$20k (Closed)	+$20k (Closed)
Week 7	+$20k (Closed)	+$20k (Closed)
Week 8 (triple)	+$60k (Open)	-$60k (Closed)
Week 9 (game ends)	-$20k (Open)	-$20k (Open)
Week 10	-$20k (Open)	-$20k (Open)
Week 11	-$20k (Open)	-$20k (Open)
Week 12 (quadruple)	-$80k (Open)	-$80k (Open)
Totals	+$160k	-$160k

See Also

• Prisoner's Dilemma at Wikipedia.
• Pareto Efficiency for the game-theoretic concept of optimizing gains.