ABSTRACT
You have all probably had the experience of reading something that sticks in your mind—which you keep coming back to as something of real significance. I had that experience when I read the following excerpt of a classic social-dilemma experiment, published over 20 years ago in the January, 1977, issue of Journal of Personality and Social Personality by Robyn Dawes, Jeanne McTavish, and Harriet Shaklee:
… One of the most significant aspects of this study, however, did not show up in the data analysis. It is the extreme seriousness with which the subjects take the problems. Comments such as, “if you defect on the rest of us, you’re going to have to live with it the rest of your life,” were not at all uncommon. Nor was it unusual for people to wish to leave the experimental building by the back door, to claim that they did not wish to see the “sons of bitches” who doublecrossed them, to become extremely angry at other participants, or to become tearful.…
The affect level also mitigates against examining choice visibility. In pretesting, we did run one group in which choices were made public. The three defectors were the target of a great deal of hostility (“You have no idea how much you alienate me!” one cooperator shouted before storming out of the room); they remained after the experiment until all the cooperators were presumably long gone… (Dawes et al., 1977, p. 7)
