Ultimatum Game

Answer choices

1. A

   Goes Against Explanation7% picked this

   Contrary to the assumptions of theoretical economics, human beings do not act primarily

   The author wouldn't say that "humans don't act out of self-interest" because the explanation he favors is one centered around self-interest. People reject low-offers out of self-interest: they think that it's in their long term interest to not look like a sucker who's willing to be treated unfairly.

   7%
2. B

   Starts a New Topic3% picked this

   Unfortunately, one-time, anonymous interactions are becoming increasingly common in

   The author has never said anything about what's becoming more common in contemporary society. This whole passage has dealt with a highly artificial research setting, and otherwise with our evolutionary past. So this kind of "unfortunately" is adding an unsupported new dimension to the passage.

   3%
3. C

   Correct72% picked this

   The instinctive urge to acquire a favorable reputation may also help to explain the desire of many proposers in the Ultimatum

   Why this is right

   This adds on to the same evolutionary explanation for the "responder" and loops back to make the same explanation work for the "proposer" as well. When the author transitioned out of the 2nd and into the 3rd paragraph, she was saying "This explanation that some people pose at best could explain the behavior of the Proposer, but it wouldn't explain the Responder at all." Since she then spends her 3rd paragraph describing how her preferred explanation can make sense of the Responder's behavior, it's a sensible last sentence for her to say, "Oh yeah, and it also works for the Proposer too." Mainly, correct answers on Add to Passage are correct because the others were wrong.

   Skill tested: Add to the Passage · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

   72%
4. D

   Out of Scope: other benefits13% picked this

   High self-esteem and a positive reputation offer individuals living in small groups many other

   This isn't terrible, but it's more along the lines of opening up a new topic then it is looping back to wrap up loose ends or putting a bookend on the passage. The only relevant benefit of self-esteem to this passage is the fact that people are less likely to make you low offers in the future, if you've established that you have too much self-esteem to even consider so insulting an offer. Bringing up other benefits isn't really germane to the conversation, and we don't know what these benefits are, so this answer feels more like it would be opening up a new topic.

   13%
5. E

   Out of Scope5% picked this

   The behavior of participants in the Ultimatum Game sheds light on the question of what

   Out of Scope: new concept of "fair" I don't think anything about the author's explanation is leading to us reexamining what "fair" is. We all know, before we read the passage, that "fair" would mean sharing approximately equally (assuming one person is no more entitled to this money than the other). The proposers who were offering low offers didn't think of them as "fair"; they just assumed they could probably get away with it, since the responder would be silly to take ZERO money rather than SOME money.

   5%