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> 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
by jsiepkes 5y ago
> 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've never consistently seen the "highest ranking" in board rooms, meetings, whatever consistently taking the last sandwich, cookie or whatever was only one left of.
This feels like one of those things that is referenced in a dozen papers but has never been replicated.
- akhodakivskiy 5y agothe highest ranking person in the room won’t take the extra sandwich, but will take the extra million to buy as many sandwiches as he wants. in this isolated experiment the entire organization consists of 3 persons, one of them a leader, and 4 sandwiches. real world orgs are much more complex, and sandwiches take many subtle forms
- hemantv 5y agoMaybe if you are selected at "random" then you will always pick the extra cookie because you know you don't deserve it Whereas if you "highest ranking" person you think you are deserving and expect more grace from yourself
- jsiepkes 5y agoCould very well be. And those are definitely interesting questions. But what I find troubling is the massive extrapolation that happens next: > This experiment helps to explain Wall Street bonuses and CEO pay, and I’m sure lots of other human behavior. I'm not saying there is or there is not something wrong with CEO compensation. But doing an extrapolation to the scale of CEO pay is just nuts. Would you step on an ant if somebody paid you 50 bucks? Ah then you could also be a hitman.