The elimination of greed PT2

Consider a man alone in a room and told he can chose from a selection of available prizes. He can chose only one item, or nothing at all if he wishes, but he can keep what he takes. The prizes are all kinds of values and types.

3 MP3 players – ascending quality
1 new coffee cup
large colour TV
Picture painted by local artist
Lucky charm
A envelope containing a labelled amount of cash

What does he chose and more importantly what thought processes does he consider whilst choosing.

Ok, our first subject “tim”.

Background , 20yo renting flat alone, stable job on modest salary.

Tim, goes in and comes out with, the Large colour TV. When he exits we interview him and ask him about his thoughts and motivations. He says that basically it was a chance to get some something free, chose the Tv because it looked to most expensive thing there, more than the Cash, and he’d already got a top of range MP3 player. The TV will look nice in his living room and he might be able to sell his existing one. When asked did he feel greedy he said no, why should I? you were giving them away.

Our next subject is “Cuthbert”
Background, 44yo, married, big mortgage, stable job on job salary

Cuthbert goes in and comes out with, nothing. We asked him why he took nothing, he said he thought there was some kind of trick going on and wasn’t comfortable
playing along. Did you feel greedy? Well when I saw the item a deep sense of greed did enter my mind, like I want them all, but logic took over, so no not really.


Julie, 72 widowed, on a state pension with few savings

Julie comes out with the lucky charm, saying she needs all the luck she can get for her upcoming hospital operation. We didn’t ask her if she felt greedy but she did say none of the other items appealed to her much, although she counted the cash and commented that it was an awful lot of Money.

“Brian”

Background, 27yo, single, buying house, steady low paid job.

Brian didn’t come out at all. After a while we found the room empty and an open window. He’d taken all of the prizes so we weren’t able to interview him about how he felt.