Yes, I basically agree with your first two paragraphs. However, I disagree that the evidence shows people are using post-hoc justifications in the lose-lose condition. There is no need for that hypothesis. If the “less money in politics” people in the lose-lose condition also took money in the win-win condition but everyone else switched, we would get similar results to that actually observed.
I don’t know if I even disagree with your explanation for the different results between the win-win and lose-lose conditions. I’m modeling this off of existing models of taboo violation. Breaking “mundane taboos” like “donating less/no money” are always preferred over “sacred taboos” like “donating to the opposition” or “stealing, even from the opposition”. So the more politically active someone is, the more likely they are to view “donating less” as a sacred taboo, since the more politically active someone is, the more they are exposed to requests for political donations and hence ignore them. The difference is mostly in the framing—my framing is that, in reality, causing there to be less donations to your side doesn’t feel like a taboo, since it’s something people do implicitly anyways. This is all that is needed to explain our results, and I think the simplest, most elegant, and least counter-intuitive.
We might actually have the same models, with the only difference being the viscousness implied. The real question is where they differ, and what different predictions they give. I think the best way to resolve this is a followup study that directly asks people what each option makes them feel emotionally, and how much.
I think we agree on the taboo/loyalty test thing, and I don’t have strong, considered, specific views on the details of people’s psychological state—I don’t think the results of a “how each option makes them feel emotionally” study is likely to surprise me, because I just don’t have very articulate or confident views on that level of granularity.
I’m still not quite sure what you’re pointing out with the “less money in politics” thing explaining these results. Is that something you can spell out point by point, maybe giving specific numbers from the study to buttress your argument? I realize that’s a big ask, I understand if you don’t want to take the trouble.
~20% of people were explicitly “less money in politics” in the lose-lose condition. This explains why ~20% of people took away money in the win-win condition, because it was the same people. That’s it. It doesn’t explain anything else. I just brought it up because it was interesting. While everyone else was having to struggle with difficult emotions, they just pressed the button to take away money, in line with their values. This was funny to me.
Let’s say we kicked the “less money in politics” crowd out of the study. If they were 20% of the respondents, I believe that about half the remaining people would have chosen each option. Which starts to look like it’s pretty arbitrary, not a sign of some deep seated psychological quirk. I’ll have to ask the author about that—thanks for explaining!
Yes, I basically agree with your first two paragraphs. However, I disagree that the evidence shows people are using post-hoc justifications in the lose-lose condition. There is no need for that hypothesis. If the “less money in politics” people in the lose-lose condition also took money in the win-win condition but everyone else switched, we would get similar results to that actually observed.
I don’t know if I even disagree with your explanation for the different results between the win-win and lose-lose conditions. I’m modeling this off of existing models of taboo violation. Breaking “mundane taboos” like “donating less/no money” are always preferred over “sacred taboos” like “donating to the opposition” or “stealing, even from the opposition”. So the more politically active someone is, the more likely they are to view “donating less” as a sacred taboo, since the more politically active someone is, the more they are exposed to requests for political donations and hence ignore them. The difference is mostly in the framing—my framing is that, in reality, causing there to be less donations to your side doesn’t feel like a taboo, since it’s something people do implicitly anyways. This is all that is needed to explain our results, and I think the simplest, most elegant, and least counter-intuitive.
We might actually have the same models, with the only difference being the viscousness implied. The real question is where they differ, and what different predictions they give. I think the best way to resolve this is a followup study that directly asks people what each option makes them feel emotionally, and how much.
I think we agree on the taboo/loyalty test thing, and I don’t have strong, considered, specific views on the details of people’s psychological state—I don’t think the results of a “how each option makes them feel emotionally” study is likely to surprise me, because I just don’t have very articulate or confident views on that level of granularity.
I’m still not quite sure what you’re pointing out with the “less money in politics” thing explaining these results. Is that something you can spell out point by point, maybe giving specific numbers from the study to buttress your argument? I realize that’s a big ask, I understand if you don’t want to take the trouble.
~20% of people were explicitly “less money in politics” in the lose-lose condition. This explains why ~20% of people took away money in the win-win condition, because it was the same people. That’s it. It doesn’t explain anything else. I just brought it up because it was interesting. While everyone else was having to struggle with difficult emotions, they just pressed the button to take away money, in line with their values. This was funny to me.
Gotcha.
Let’s say we kicked the “less money in politics” crowd out of the study. If they were 20% of the respondents, I believe that about half the remaining people would have chosen each option. Which starts to look like it’s pretty arbitrary, not a sign of some deep seated psychological quirk. I’ll have to ask the author about that—thanks for explaining!