If I recall correctly, this isn't quite accurate—with four cookies, no one ate the fourth. So they changed to five cookies, and the group leader then usually took the fourth (with no one taking the fifth).
The researcher says it was 4 cookies and the leader nearly always took the 4th (and ate it messily). The researcher attributed it to "power" but I can see that luck was certainly involved.
I wonder if he's simplifying when describing it, since the aside about no one eating the last cookie when there are only four is kind of beside the point. I can't find the original study. I definitely recall listening to an interview where the researcher mentioned having to add a fifth cookie, but of course I could be mistaken too.
I wonder why people are having such a hard time taking this study at face value, given the plain description from the researcher. I'm not saying this is a universal effect, but several comments are doubting that it ever happened.
I think you're misunderstanding the comment about nobody taking the last cookie. He's setting up the situation. Every group left one cookie (at first), and then usually the leader to that cookie.
No, I recall a specific comment that they had to tweak the experiment to add a fifth cookie since no one took the fourth, then they saw the effect described here, lip smacking and all, with the fourth cookie.
Ah, here we go—I found where I heard it. It was in an episode of the podcast "Hidden Brain", called "The Perils of Power." It's an interview with the researcher who ran the experiment, Dacher Keltner. He starts describing the experiment at about 16:20, and explicitly discusses why they added a fifth cookie:
"Well this was where it's really interesting because the rules of politeness suggest you should really not be that uncouth person that takes the last cookie off the plate, and so we did pilot testing for the experiment and no one would take that fourth cookie—so that's why we added the fifth cookie: just to free somebody up to take that second-to-last cookie."
It always seems like a strange social situation, the polite thing is to ask if anyone else wants the last item, and yet the correct behaviour is for everyone else to say they don't want it so the asking party can have it. Have you ever seen a situation where someone says they want it?
So it's a race to ask if anyone else wants it, so you can have it, all the while waiting a polite amount of time before asking so you don't look like you're having seconds too quick. Just strange social dynamics all around.
Korda's eye for detail really shines a couple of hundred pages later, when he and several other editors have joined Ronald Reagan in Los Angeles, near the end of the president's second term, to work on Reagan's memoirs. A plate of bad, overchunked chocolate cookies has been served. Only one remains, and Reagan's good manners dictate that he offer it around before taking it himself:
[Here the Salon article quotes from Korda's own memoirs]:
One of his aides took the plate from his hand and passed it on. The aides, I noticed, knew better than to reach for the last cookie. [S&S editor] Chuck Adams passed the plate on to me, and I passed it on to [writer Robert] Lindsey, the last man in the circle. I caught a glimpse of the president's face. His eyes were hopeful and bright, his whole expression that of somebody who has done the right thing and seen it pay off. He was already reaching for the plate when Lindsey, who had been bent over a copy of the manuscript, oblivious of the small drama taking place at the table, absentmindedly grabbed the cookie and bit into it without even looking up.
Reagan's face crumpled, his expression that of a man who has just staked the farm on one card and lost.
My father has a favorite story from his childhood. His best friend was over eating, and they were having porkchops which was a big deal in my father's house at the time.
There was one extra after everyone had their first, and my grandfather asked aloud if anyone wanted the last, with his fork already poised over the porkchop.
My father's best friend said "Yeah, thanks Mr. XYZ!" and snatched it out from under my grandfather's fork.
Not really contrary to your point, of course. It's a favorite story of my father's specifically because his friend broke the implicit code of "does anyone want this."
> It seems insincere to ask if he didn’t really mean it.
It's not exactly insincerity; cultural nuances like this throw-off outsiders but are not easily apparent to the in-group who have internalized the relevant call-and-responses for the ritual. Consider the standard greeting "How are you?" - the person asking isn't being insincere, but they don't really want to know how you are.
Well, there's also the option to offer to split it. It's not like most food must be consumed as whole units. Asking if anyone else wants it can open the dialog where that option can be presented.
That'd be my default, and I'd be sure to propose it first. I recall eating cheese with a friend. Once it was largely gone, we'd each take half of what remained. We had a sharp knife, and eventually it got very silly. But then, we were stoned.
As I mentioned in my original post, it is somewhat insincere since the expectation is generally that everyone present will let you eat the last porkchop.
With that said, general politeness would mean that if someone did ask for it then you would let them have it, but it happens very rarely in my experience.
I have a hypothesis: perhaps we should interpret "would anyone like the last pork chop?" as "Does anyone need the last pork-chop?".
Scenario A: the Provider offers the last piece to the group. If everyone is sufficiently satisfied and grateful for what they've already eaten, it allows them to express that gratitude and the Provider gets to enjoy being magnanimous; a small-fee to pay for the meal you've just enjoyed!
Scenario B: the Provider offers the last piece to the group, and one who may be in need is allowed to 'save face' by not having to say "I need it, I'm starving!". If this need is genuine (it would likely already be known to the group), the Provider would probably have no problem with this, and it causes the minimum amount of discomfort to the person in need.
Scenario X: You offer the final piece, and some opportunistic vulture swoops in with his fork and says "Thanks bro!". You have now learned to never, ever invite him to eat again.
Edit: offering to split the last chop is slightly beneficial in the short-term (yummy pork), but no one really gets to reap the non-tangible rewards described above to the greatest effect.
This is a very western outlook. I recall reading that on the ISS, the American astronauts considered the Russian cosmonauts to be rude because they would pick out whatever food they wanted. Maybe apocryphal, and maybe not, but I - Russian, and born and raised there for ten years - have zero qualms about asking to take the last of something.
I think you are British, that's the polite form in the UK where I come from. In the USA if you try this it's pretty common for people to say yes they would like it. Different culture!
I think the sincere form would be something like "who else would like more?" Or "shall I save this or is someone still hungry?". And then cut it in as many pieces.
I'm not an expert on manners, but I don't think there is any polite way to claim yourself an extra pork chop to the exclusion of others.
I'm Australian, but it seems the Brits taught us convicts some additional etiquette :)
I should have put a note in there about cultures in my original post as I suspected as much about there being differences. I suspect in non-Western cultures too that this behaviour isn't a thing as well.
Ditto. I don't know what the most polite way of addressing it is, but I've done that as well and never seen it be the cause of bad feelings.
I've also adopted a behavior I learned from a friend, which was to say something like "Anybody want to split the last one with me?" or "Does anybody else want the last one, or want to split it?" or something to that effect.
Yes, the story is inaccurate: the study was about how power, not luck, changes perceptions. But the message is still right. It's easy to be a jerk if you are powerful. (And it's easy to be negative when you're just commenting on the Internet.)
Edit: I got it wrong, the original study was four people as Lewis reports, not five as some commenters here believe. Lewis is also right about table manners, btw.
> Yes, the story is inaccurate: the study was about how power, not luck, changes perceptions.
I think you misunderstood the situation. The Michael Lewis speech is precisely pointing that power changes perceptions, because we like to believe that we deserve the power you have. He's challenging the students to eschew that altered perception by pointing out that they're in that position of power but, like in the experiment, their power doesn't come from intrinsic worthiness but from sheer dumb luck.
We have to be careful throwing around words like "luck" too much. Success is a combination of good choice and luck. Those good choices are very important to emphasize because that's what we have control over.
Given the success, it's also important to try improve others' odds. But good choices should also be respected.
Note that hard work may or may not be a good choice; and if it is, it's one good choice among many.
yes, it's important to choose the right country to be born in, the right affluent and wealthy parents, the right ethniticity and of course the right gender.
There are tactical choices you can make in life beyond that. Stuff like choosing the right extracurricular activities, choosing "good" majors, hanging out with the "right" people.
Of course the factors you mentioned make a lot of this easier. And perhaps more importantly those factors mean that you're more likely to be forgiven for not doing the "right" thing. While those from less fortunate categories will be berated for ever having spent a single second not hustling
To be clear: I 100% agree with the sentiment here.
There are things "in your control", but the prerequisites to having any control is based around the factors you've mentioned.
In theory even if your parents are super successful and the stars have aligned, you can still mess your life up. But at least you're given the opportunity to mess it up, instead of just being handed a shitty life from the outset.
You have little control over your parent's financial position, but you do have control over the major you choose within the schools available to you. Even within that limited pool, some choices are likelier to lead to success than others. Yes, the capital letters "Right People" might not be around in Minnesota, but there's still probably going to be different social groups to choose from.
Sure. But also remember that many successful people came from humble backgrounds and achieved what they did mostly by working their fucking asses off to make the most of their abilities.
Effort is something that is readily apparent in professional sports. Many talented players wash out in the NFL because of lack of effort. Compare that with Jerry Rice, considered to be the greatest wide receiver of all time:
Rice is also remembered for his work ethic and dedication to the game. In his 20 NFL seasons, Rice missed only 17 regular season games, 14 of them in the 1997 season, and the other 3 in the strike-shortened season of 1987. His 303 games are by far the most ever played by an NFL wide receiver. In addition to staying on the field, his work ethic showed in his dedication to conditioning and running precise routes, with coach Dennis Green calling him "the best route runner I've ever seen." One of the best known examples of his dedication and ethic may be "The Hill", a long and steep hill in Edgewood County Park & Natural Preserve, that is "two and a half miles up". Rice would sprint across the hill literally every day to improve his abilities.
I think we agree that there is everyday value to recognizing and rewarding good choices on an individual level. But if we're talking about how society is structured, and you think that people who make poor choices deserve a systemically-accepted low quality of life, then we disagree.
If someone makes poor choices, they aren't employable, etc. I'm fine with that. But if the reason they make those choices comes down to lack of education, poor parenting, or just a crappy draw from the genetic lottery, I don't think a society that blames people for that is a healthy society in the long term.
It's an individual vs. societal perspective, or maybe daily vs. long term issue. It might feel like cognitive dissonance, but your behavior to individuals can be different from the policies for which you advocate.
"Luck" has a negative connotation, so it's not symmetrical.
If someone puts a blindfold on and runs across the freeway and doesn't get hurt, they are lucky. If they do get hurt, you wouldn't call them "unlucky".
If someone has balanced investments (in line with mainstream recommendations) and the market crashes right after they retire, they are unlucky. If the market doesn't crash and they have a comfortable retirement, you wouldn't call them "lucky".
Based on your examples, the "antisymmetry" of luck has much more to do with the probability of events than it does with the societal connotation of luck. You're more likely to get hit by a car than you are to be safe if you cross a busy road with a blindfold. The market is more likely to be not crashing than crashing in any particular point in time. We don't avoid using the inverse of "unlucky" to describe the inverse set of those scenarios because the inverse is simply likely, not because of a connotation with the word itself. Most events don't model a coin toss.
I don't think people avoid using one word or the other when it's appropriate. The words "lucky" and "unlucky" both map to the same positive statement ("This event that happened was unlikely"). But they have respectively opposite normative statements ("This event's occurrence is good" or "This event's occurrence is bad"). When a person does extremely well and it's unlikely to have happened, such a person will (in my experience) be straightforwardly honest and say things like, "I am very lucky", even if they very clearly had a hand in their success (such as by founding a successful company).
This is to say: I don't think people avoid using chance-based terminology to refer to their or others' success because of a profound insight about attribution. I think they avoid it because words such as "lucky" and "unlucky" are more often associated with events that are much closer to random than they are to simply unlikely. Going back to your examples: if I put a blindfold on and run into traffic, I have extremely limited agency with which to force an unlikely event (my safety) to happen. I'll be exceptionally lucky to be safe. But if I found a company and sell it for $10 billion, it's not comparable to assume I had little agency over that occurrence, let alone none at all.
Mainstream recommendation is to pull investments out of the stock market and move them into less volatile instruments as retirement approaches. Luck (in investmenrs ar least) should become less of a factor as retirement age approaches.
I agree with the belief that "to whom much is given, much is expected," but the framing of "luck" bothers me.
Sure, there are some undeserving rich people and their stories are trotted out whenever we talk about someone earning a salary in the top 5%. But what about the doctor at a premier children's hospital who has done nothing but study and sacrifice for their first 30 years on the planet to earn a job that involves telling parents with depressing regularity that their child is going to die despite the best efforts of medical science? Those folks can have all the cookies they want.
Are many high-earners the beneficiaries of unearned privilege? Absolutely. Do the majority of these "lucky" people also work hard and add tremendous value to society? Absolutely. We should always try to help the needy but dismissing the very real efforts of the most successful (of which I'd not count my self a member) is bad practice.
I don't know many people who would consider someone at the 96% percentile of income as "rich". Even folks at the 99% are still basically just upper middle class. If you have a high paying job such that you've got 2 homes and and a few nice cars and all your kids are going to expensive private schools then you are simply upper middle class. Being wealthy suggests that you possess such capital that you've never had to work. Work is entirely optional. If you never work, you will still continue to grow more wealthy, because the assets you own continue to accrue profits.
If you look at the Forbes list of richest 400 people, it tends to be a handful of tech people, plus a whole lot of people who inherited their wealth, plus obvious criminals such as the oligarchs who stole much of the wealth of Russia, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Of those who inherited their money, then obviously all of their money comes from luck. Of those who are criminals, we can admire their entrepreneurial skills, but remember they are sociopaths who have broken the law and who have sometimes killed people. Also, the collapse of the Soviet Union can be viewed as pure luck, as they had nothing to do with it.
>I don't know many people who would consider someone at the 96% percentile of income as "rich".
Hmm? I'm getting $240,000 in household income yearly. I'd call that rich, I think lots of people I know would call that rich. Quarter mil per year is good money.
>Even folks at the 99% are still basically just upper middle class.
Huh? I'm getting $400,000 a year in income. That's rich
This strikes me as the same thing poor people do, to always define poverty as just below themselves but since this community has many people with large salaries, we define rich as just above us, just out of reach enough. If you pull in $400,000 a year you aren't middle class, you're rich. Accept it.
I agree. Someone making $240,000 per year makes consumer choices every hour that half or more of Americans cannot fathom. And likewise, someone making $25k/year is making completely different choices. From what I understand, a large portion of both considers themselves middle class.
"Middle Class" is the taxonomic equivalent to silly putty. It can be stretched any which way. We need it to be so to deal with the vast inequalities of our society.
"If you pull in $400,000 a year you aren't middle class, you're rich."
This is from the character Gordon Gecko, in the 1987 movie "Wall Street":
"Wake up, will ya, pal? If you're not inside, you're outside, okay? And I'm not talking a $400,000 a year working Wall Street stiff flying first class and being comfortable, I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player, or nothing. Now, you had what it took to get into my office; the real question is whether you got what it takes to stay."
Wealthy people live on capital. That is a traditional definition of what it means to be wealthy. If you have to work, at all, then you are not wealthy.
No, that's my point, you're just defining 'rich' as the next step up. If you are earning a 99 percentile income you're rich. Gordon Gecko or not, you may not be uber-wealthy yacht-buying or anything like that but there's no way someone who makes $400,000 can be called middle-class at all.
>Wealthy people live on capital. That is a traditional definition of what it means to be wealthy. If you have to work, at all, then you are not wealthy.
That's not traditional at all. Doctors are traditionally referred to as wealthy and they work. You're saying a CEO (of a smaller company) isn't wealthy? A hedge fund manager isn't wealthy? Of course these people are wealthy and yet they'd all probably still have to work.
It's totally inane to define middle class as everything from 25%-99.5%.
I think you’re defining middle class differently. To you, it’s by some definition “middle income”. To the grandparent it’s more about social class (having to work for a living).
Doctors achieve higher social status despite having to work. So do celebrities, etc.
I think you’re both right. Some people can turn 400k a year into real wealth, others will just be working joes with bigger car payments.
Also iirc in California you need like 1.5mm in hhi for top 1% so that’s factoring into this too.
Doctors are rich. If they have to work to keep their nice car/house/boat/lifestyle then they aren't wealthy. Of course, there are wealthy doctors, but the definition of wealth is financial independence, not any set income level.
Rich and wealthy are usually synonyms, and seem to match pretty well what you call wealthy. I think what you label “rich” would be better labeled “high income”.
> If you pull in $400,000 a year you aren't middle class, you're rich. Accept it.
In the simplest form, in a basically capitalist economy, if you live off the proceeds of selling labor to capitalists, you are working class; if you live off a balanced mix of labor and capital income, or by applying your own labor to your own capital, you are middle class; if you live by renting other people's labor to apply to your capital, you are in the capitalist class.
Just as in a feudal economy, no amount of income will, by itself, move one from the merchant class to the nobility (though it might help buy influence which might be used to effect such a transition), no amount of income on its own will move you out of the working class in a capitalist economy, though investing that income in productive capital might.
Ridiculous. So Kevin Garnett, who earned $334m playing in the NBA is working class, but the guy next door to me who owns a flooring business (run out of his van & home) with one employee is in the capitalist class... A difference without distinction.
One is rich beyond most people's wildest dreams, the other is very much middle class.
> but the guy next door to me who owns a flooring business (run out of his van & home) with one employee is in the capitalist class
Probably middle class, since presunably if the business is run out of his van and home, his applying his own labor to it is vital.
> One is rich beyond most people's wildest dreams
Wealth and class are correlated but separate axes of variation.
You know how many pro-athletes end up destitute shortly after they stop being able to sell their labor at high prices? They dependence is the hallmark of the working class.
Now, it's true, they if you are making what a star player does in any of the major sports, you have enough money coming in that you could easily buy yourself into the capitalist class; but until and unless you do that, you haven't changed the basic manner in which you relate to the economic system, and remain a rich worker, not a member of any other class.
You missed where I said he had one employee. So he's a capitalist? These definitions are useless when it comes to evaluating wealth and the meaning of being rich. Being a "capitalist" by your definition doesn't mean being wealthy or rich by any stretch, while being a "worker" can result in unimaginable wealth.
He'd be a capitalist if his own labor was an insignificant share of the labor applied to his capital; a small business with one non-owner employee rarely would be that way (it could be, if, e.g., the employee did all the work and the owner was purely a passive investor.)
> These definitions are useless when it comes to evaluating wealth and the meaning of being rich.
They have a lot more to do with wealth than income level does, though, yes, class and wealth are not identical.
> Being a "capitalist" by your definition doesn't mean being wealthy or rich by any stretch
Surviving as one certainly does, unless you can consistently, year over year, manage improbably high returns (and if you can, you'll probably be quite wealthy before long even if you didn't start there; instantaneous inconsistencies between class economic patterns and wealth are more common than durable ones.)
> while being a "worker" can result in unimaginable wealth.
It can in theory, though it doesn't very often in practice, even among the narrow slice of the labor-selling population who experience some period with the kind of income which suggests the possibility of such an outcome.
Well if we wanna talk about the difference between bourgeois and proletariat that's one thing but that's not the same thing as lower/middle/upper class.
I would even refute the notion that you must be a capitalist in that sense to be in the modern nobility.
$200k yearly, consistently, for N years, managed well, is almost certainly rich. 200k yearly without any further context doesn't say as much. Yearly income, by itself, may be here today and gone tomorrow (or next year).
>But what about the doctor at a premier children's hospital who has done nothing but study and sacrifice for their first 30 years on the planet to earn a job
But how much have they really earned it? If you look at the breakdown of doctors by their parents income[1] there is a huge bias towards people growing up in upper class homes. if you look at doctorates in general[2] you'll see a huge bias towards kids whose parents already have some sort of graduate degree.
That's not to say it's not hard to become a doctor/get a phd and whoever does it did a lot of work but it does betray that there is an effect here akin to 'laundering privilege.' That is to say these things aren't totally earned, only partially so.
Back in grad school, many of us called our stipends "welfare for middle class kids who couldn't get a job."
When I was deciding between academia and industry in the mid 90s, the postdocs I was looking at in physics were paying 16-19k. Which at the time, was below poverty level wages for a family. Compare that to the modest offer given to be by my future employer, which was slightly below my thesis advisors comp at the time. When I left them, I was making more than the dean of the school.
I didn't have an upper middle class background. My divorced mother supported 3 kids on crap pay. I skipped the more expensive schools I got into, even with scholarships, as I could afford only one school after it was all said and done.
I took a year off after undergrad, before grad school, to earn money, as I was unsure of my financial situation while there. Later, during Ph.D. studies, I supported myself and my wife on consulting work I did on the side, because $8k/year stipend doesn't quite pay for food and housing.
Please, drop the discussion of privilege. I had none. I used none. I simply worked my ass off. As did my wife (a woman of color if it matters, though neither one of us think it does, or should).
Like the terrible statement by Mr. Obama and Ms. Warren, yeah, I built it. I poured blood, sweat, and tears into it. No one helped elevate me above others. I had to deal with discrimination against me personally, in some parts of grad school (MS not Ph.D).
Its not just me though. The other students I met had similar stories and backgrounds. Precious few of them had family resources to draw on, friends to lean on to help them get ahead.
Only people who don't really know, who haven't experienced this first hand, who haven't interacted with the people actually going through this, could call this "privilege". The rest of us call it hard work, nose to the grind stone, luck, and the intelligence to capitalize on this luck, by recognizing a path to take advantage of this.
Then you're an exception. If you came from a poor and uneducated background then congratulations on the climb but pretending that your story is an example of the average experience of the doctorate just isn't true ("The other students I met had similar stories and backgrounds"), even if those going through phd programs don't all have wealthy families, they commonly have family members who have done same thing which is a privilege all in it's own, one you can't even buy.
>I had none. I used none.
>I built it. I poured blood, sweat, and tears into it. No one helped elevate me above others.
You'll forgive me but everyone has had help.
>Only people who don't really know, who haven't experienced this first hand, who haven't interacted with the people actually going through this, could call this "privilege". The rest of us call it hard work, nose to the grind stone, luck, and the intelligence to capitalize on this luck, by recognizing a path to take advantage of this.
Oh boy here we go. Yeah like I said getting a medical degree is hard work, nose to the grindstone, luck and intelligence, all this stuff. Why is it that wealthy kids are vastly over-represented though? There's obviously additional components - the ability to get your kids into a good highschool, parents who have the time to devote a lot of attention to their kids, parents who have gotten a graduate degree themselves and so can better guide someone through it. There's all sorts of other privileges too, being interested in the right things, maybe even at the right time is a great example. Privileges are all around us. Maybe you really are a Horatio Alger story jumped off the page, if so recognize that you're the vast minority.
You lucked out going to school in the 90’s for one thing when it was a lot more affordable.
You lucked out being born in the US.
You lucked out getting a big brain.
I lucked out having the Soviet Union collapse and flood the market with physicists when I was looking.
No wait. Thats sort of the opposite of luck.
[edit] School was unaffordable for me at any of the 10 places that accepted me and offered me scholarships. I still had to come up with money I didn't have, and couldn't get. I suppose that is luck too? No, I had to work off campus in undergrad as well to pay for food/board/etc in addition to school.
I turned a crappy situation for myself and my family into a positive outcome, only by giving up my chosen career path, and pursuing industry, in a field outside of my studies.
Really lucked out there. No ... I guess I didn't.
Seriously, hard work, being smart enough to recognize what was going on around me, remaining calm during an incredibly stressful multi-year situation, and managing the processes through to a successful outcome. That is not privilege, and anyone making the claim that somehow being able to make lemonade out of the lemons that your "privileged" life dealt you ... yeah. About that.
You play the hand you are dealt. You play it hard. You play it smart. You know the house always wins. You know you really shouldn't swing for the fences. Insert any other cliche you want here.
But you accept that the hand you are dealt is what you have to deal with. You do not feel sorry for yourself for being born into poverty or money. You simply bust your butt. And play that hand hard. You have no choice.
So you discuss that a lot of people were luckier than you, which I have no doubt is true. But you don't discuss all the people even less lucky. A number that runs in the billions.
That's the empathy and perspective that talk of "privilege" is asking for. Don't feel guilty, just keep that in mind when judging others or discussing policy.
Did you got to a public or private university? In either case, society helped a great deal towards what you obtained.
Here’s a good Obama quote:
> Our higher education system is one of the things that makes America exceptional. There's no place else that has the assets we do when it comes to higher education. People from all over the world aspire to come here and study here. And that is a good thing.
Or this:
> Now, as a nation, we don't promise equal outcomes, but we were founded on the idea everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, you can make it. That's an essential promise of America. Where you start should not determine where you end up.
One look out the window at a landscaper with brown skin should disabuse anyone that that works in an air conditioned office that luck isn’t a huge factor in success.
I worked on a farm, construction, worked in lumber mill, and had jobs through school as well but I have no doubt that I won the “ovarian lottery”. As a side effect, I’m not in a hurry to “pull the ladder up behind me” because my hard work somehow makes me more worthy than all the other people who worked even harder but weren’t as lucky.
> Do the majority of these "lucky" people also work hard and add tremendous value to society?
This is precisely where the problem lies. "add tremendous value to society" is basically limited by your leverage. If you and I are equally as talented and equally as hard working, the value we add to society will largely differ based on the opportunities presented to us.
None of this is about shaming those born into wealth, or in any, shape, or form saying they're intrinsically spoiled brats or anything of that ilk. It's just a reminder that, instead of assuming you're entitled to that last cookie, perhaps you should learn to share it.
"With incredible consistency the person arbitrarily appointed leader of the group grabbed the fourth cookie, and ate it. Not only ate it, but ate it with gusto: lips smacking, mouth open, drool at the corners of their mouths. In the end all that was left of the extra cookie were crumbs on the leader’s shirt."
I read New Scientist and sometimes psychology research is mentioned there and given credence.
How on earth is: "lips smacking, mouth open, drool at the corners of their mouths" science? By that I mean, it is not the sort of thing I would expect to see in a paper unless there were photographs of the effect as evidence.
Soz, I should explain: Allow a speech about something a bit of leeway but if the source is bollocks, then call it out as such.
Science is a thing. The scientific method is a thing. A speech at an event can be a bit wayward and take liberties but the original, quoted, research should be sound.
Forest for the trees - the study was used to drive home a point about the position in the world these graduates were in. The study wasn't used to incite curiosity about p-values.
It's curious because these leaders obviously don't care much about nutrition, itself a possible problem variable. They're not athletes, diabetics, or someone else who would refuse one cookie, much less a second. I certainly wouldn't eat two cookies, and that doesn't mean I don't act entitled in other ways. Conversely, what if this leader was extra hungry that moment or has an eating disorder.
I'm sure this social psychology experiment could have been done differently.
I've been looking for the last ten minutes. Having a hell of a time finding it. The author was Dacher Keltner, it was conducted at Cal (?) in the late nineties (?). Its nickname was the "Cookie Monster" study. I found a YouTube video where he described it [1]. But I can't find the actual study, or any citations of it.
I wonder how successful attempts to replicate it have been. Couldn't find anything on that either.
From that, here's the actual paper. Little methodology description, no significance testing, no indication of the number of participants or how they were selected. This has significantly diminished my belief in the proposition that power makes people more selfish in the cookie scenario. I still believe it is somewhat more likely to be true because of my priors, but this study didn't contribute much.
I also spent about 10 minutes reading the relevant section of that review. Agree with your assessment. The measure is 'number of cookies eaten' broken down by whether or not the person was a randomly chosen leader and their gender. For men, the number of cookies eaten was about the same for leaders and non-leaders. For women, leaders ate about 1.35 cookies on average and non-leaders about 0.8 cookies. I don't much care for significance testing, but it would be nice to know the number of participants and the variance in the measure. The researcher characterizes this as 'in almost every instance' the leader ate the extra cookie to some publications, and as 2/3rds of the time the leader ate the extra cookie to NPR.
Oops! I only saw the other child, who was replying with links. My apologies. My comment will stand unedited so people don't get confused about your reply.
I wish I’d been in this experiment as a “leader” to see what I’d do, because I can’t imagine taking the cookie without at least asking whether anyone else wanted it, or offering to divide it. I can’t see any of my friends taking the cookie either. Is not having any manners so common?
What an ingenious way to shape a leadership scenario. Have never been nor worked for a leader who ate the 4th cookie. If 5 cookies were given out, most leaders would abstain.
Why does everyone want to try to belittle the children of rich and well-connected parents as being undeserving of their status? No man is an island. And specifically, children are a continuation of the lives of those who came before them. They carry the genes and often the wisdom of their ancestors. In a deeper, Darwinian sense, no one 'deserves' anything beyond or below what they have, and these 'lucky' people are just members of a different chain of life.
I don't see any belittling. Just a plea to recognize the complete reasons why one is where they are. It's not all self-initiated hard work, or shrewd planning. It's some parts of those, and also an excellent starting position.
The starting position makes more of a difference than a lot of people want to admit to themselves. To those on top, it feels like an attack if this is pointed out. But it's not. And thinking that your station in life is completely a result of your own actions leads to poor treatment of those who don't have what you do.
People seem to often use things like this to rationalize any amount of takings. The word "fair" comes up a lot. But who decides what is fair and how you balance out this luck?
Is 50% taxes "fair" and by what standard? How about if person constantly gives to charity? Why should taxes be the preferred way to balance fairness?
Or how about if the person lives miserly, saving every penny as if it's their last? All that money goes into new business and reducing the cost of capital. That helps the entire world.
Trying to balance out luck seems like a fool's game. While individuals should be aware and be decent human that help others, i don't think society or government should be in the position of trying to rebalance the scales fate has given you.
There are too many ways to be wrong, have unintended consequences, or make the world more fair by dragging everybody down.
(Edit: have i been shadow banned or some similar enforcement? It seems comments i post often run to -1 very quickly)
