neuro-economics

[Friam mailing list]

Here's a NYTimes article about a study that appeared in Science last Friday:

        http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/17/science/17NEUR.html

They're watching brain region activity scans while people are playing
the ultimatum game, in which one player proposes a division of the
spoils which the other player can accept or reject.  If the ultimatum is
accepted, then each player gets the proposed split, but if the ultimatum
is rejected, then each player gets nothing. In either case the game is
over after one round.  What they see that the game is played rationally
as long as the ultimatum is fair.  But when the ultimatum becomes
greedy, rational economic behavior is abandoned in favor of scorched earth.

-- rec --

[Friam mailing list]

Very interesting work.

Sam Bowles had a nice 2001 SFI public lecture "In Search of "Homo
economicus:" Experiments on Five Continents" that reviewed anthropology
studies of Ultimatum. Here's a related paper.
<http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/publications/Working-Papers/01-11-063.pdf>

Also, here's a link to a google search for Ultimatum confined to
site:santafe.edu
<http://www.google.com/search?q=ultimatum+site:santafe.edu&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-
8&oe=UTF-8&start=20&sa=N>

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]On Behalf
> Of Roger E Critchlow Jr
> Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2003 9:10 AM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: [FRIAM] neuro-economics
>
>
> Here's a NYTimes article about a study that appeared in Science
> last Friday:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/17/science/17NEUR.html
>
> They're watching brain region activity scans while people are playing
> the ultimatum game, in which one player proposes a division of the
> spoils which the other player can accept or reject.  If the ultimatum is
> accepted, then each player gets the proposed split, but if the ultimatum
> is rejected, then each player gets nothing. In either case the game is
> over after one round.  What they see that the game is played rationally
> as long as the ultimatum is fair.  But when the ultimatum becomes
> greedy, rational economic behavior is abandoned in favor of
> scorched earth.
>
> -- rec --
>
>
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