Q23

[mrudula_2005]

This is an extremely nit-picky question, but it's bothering me so I figured I'd see what you thought.

The answer to #23 is pretty obvious, especially given the other answer choices. But isn't it not exactly accurate in saying the "MOST" in "Although the reactions most commonly displayed..."

All we know (from lines 18-19) is that most responders reject offers that are less than 20% (but this happens only 4% of the time - certainly not even close to most of the time). We also know that 2/3 of proposers offer responders between 40-50% and we no nothing of reactions to that.

So how can we accurately say anything about the "most commonly displayed [reactions]"? And in saying that these reactions "appear to conflict with rational self-interest", the answer choice is clearly referring to those reactions in line 20 that refer to most responders rejecting the less than 20% offer (but that only happens 4% of the time which is FAR less than "most commonly").

So wouldn't most of the reactions not be rejections and therefore not appear to conflict with rational self-interest?

I know the testmakers put a LOT of thought and precision into what they write so this is bugging me...because it HAS to follow from the text, but I just don't see it here.

Thank you!

[giladedelman]

Ah, interesting question.

I think the key is that "commonly" is not exactly a synonym for "often." That is, "the reactions most commonly displayed" is not synonymous with "the reactions that make up the greatest percentage of all reactions." Rather, we can interpret "commonly" as more closely meaning "typically" or "likely."

So although low offers make up a small minority of all the offers in the experiment, irrationally rejecting them could still be among the most commonly, i.e., most regularly, displayed reactions to an offer.

That actually leads into another angle from which to view this one. The set of "reactions most commonly displayed" only has to include rejections of low offers in order for (B) to be accurate. It doesn't say that every single one of these common reactions conflicts with rational self-interest, just that these reactions, as a group, appear to do so.

Do you buy that?

[daniel]

Ah, interesting question.

I think the key is that "commonly" is not exactly a synonym for "often." That is, "the reactions most commonly displayed" is not synonymous with "the reactions that make up the greatest percentage of all reactions." Rather, we can interpret "commonly" as more closely meaning "typically" or "likely."

So although low offers make up a small minority of all the offers in the experiment, irrationally rejecting them could still be among the most commonly, i.e., most regularly, displayed reactions to an offer.

That actually leads into another angle from which to view this one. The set of "reactions most commonly displayed" only has to include rejections of low offers in order for (B) to be accurate. It doesn't say that every single one of these common reactions conflicts with rational self-interest, just that these reactions, as a group, appear to do so.

Do you buy that?

Hmm... I guess that makes sense, but I was thinking about it like this:

If people make economic decisions primarily out of rational self-interest, then why is it that two-thirds of proposers seek to offer a "fair" price? If rational self-interest would lead us to expect that responders should be content to accept any amount, then there is no reason that proposers motivated by rational self-interest would offer any more than the bare minimum.

So, it is not only the responders who do not act out of rational self-interest, but also the proposers who are trying to offer what they believe to be a "fair" amount.

Hence, "reactions most commonly displayed" does equal "reactions that make up the greatest percentage of all reactions."

[christine.defenbaugh]

Interesting point daniel!

I think there's an argument to be made that rational self-interest appears to conflict with proposers giving high offers. However, notice that the 'puzzle' the author latches onto in line 21 is specifically targeting the responders who reject low offers. The central apparent paradox is that. In fact, the potential explanation in paragraph 3 is rejected by the author, precisely because it explains the high-offer proposals instead of the low-offer rejections.

In short, I think Gilad's above explanation gets to the heart of why this phrasing makes sense. One could also argue that we can assume that responders in general would typically reject low offers, every time they were given, so thus we can extrapolate and say 'this behavior is typically displayed by respondents, given the appropriate stimulus'. (Grammatically, the 'to low offers' qualifiers may be implied after 'although the reactions'.)

But let's take a step back and look at the big picture. We could have hairsplitting semantics arguments all day long about what the precise wording of this answer choice refers to - there are a few reasonable interpretations, all of them very closely related. The differences between them are very minor. And the end result is this: there is at least one (more than one!) perfectly reasonable, supportable interpretation of this answer choice that matches the 'main point' of the passage directly.

And for every other answer choice you can't even get in the ballpark, no matter how much you twist and torture the language.

I'm not generally fond of reminding students that you have to pick the 'best answer' as opposed to the 'right answer', but there's a piece of wisdom there. (B) here is absolutely the 'right answer'. But you can end up convincing yourself, in the hairsplitting, that there are minor flaws or issues with reference. Sometimes the only way to pull yourself out of that rabbit hole is to back up and realize that all the other answers are terrible.

(A) Complete contradiction. The passage attempts to reconcile rational self-interest and the Ultimatum Game data.
(C) This is a mere detail from paragraph 4.
(D) This is an unsupported distortion of a detail from paragraph 4.
(E) This is an unsupported distortion of a detail from paragraph 3.


Does that makes sense?

[jewels0602]

Ah, interesting question.

I think the key is that "commonly" is not exactly a synonym for "often." That is, "the reactions most commonly displayed" is not synonymous with "the reactions that make up the greatest percentage of all reactions." Rather, we can interpret "commonly" as more closely meaning "typically" or "likely."

So although low offers make up a small minority of all the offers in the experiment, irrationally rejecting them could still be among the most commonly, i.e., most regularly, displayed reactions to an offer.

That actually leads into another angle from which to view this one. The set of "reactions most commonly displayed" only has to include rejections of low offers in order for (B) to be accurate. It doesn't say that every single one of these common reactions conflicts with rational self-interest, just that these reactions, as a group, appear to do so.

Do you buy that?

I really don't understand this part-- why does it only has to include the rejections, I don't see how we can lead from the answer choice that allows us to do that nor do I understand how the words "most commonly" allows us to make that leap.

When I google the definition of commonly the standard definition is "very often, frequent" This is in stark contrast to the first bolded part, and sorta goes against just general use of the word as I come to think of it, and common is a common word in everyday language and so to think of it this way is REALLY twisting and torturing the language... more so that I thought I was doing with C.

Please, I would REALLY appreciate more thoughts on how B works...

[maryadkins]

Lines 19-20 tell us that most responders reject such offers.
This is the reaction "most commonly displayed."

I don't think you have to agree with Gilad's interpretation of the word "commonly" to see that in this case "most responders" supports "most commonly displayed." Both tell you that MOST of the responders reacted a certain way. That way appeared to be against rational self-interest, but the passage explains how it could have evolutionary value.

Does that make sense?

And to go a bit further, even if (B) only said "commonly," not "most commonly," it would still be supported by the passage, because the passage says MOST. Most definitely includes "commonly."