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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2993 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 28, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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It's funny, but I'm not sure the actual data is useful. Procedurally, the question was

Imagine that Patricia is a parent, who hires Blake as a babysitter to watch Patricia’s young children for two days and one night over the weekend, from Saturday morning to Sunday night. Patricia walks out the door, hands Blake a credit card, and says: “Use this credit card to make sure the kids have fun this weekend.”

[MISUSE] Blake only uses the credit card to rent a movie that only he watches; Blake does not use the card to buy anything for the children.

[MINOR] Blake does not use the credit card at all. Blake plays card games with the kids.

[REASONABLE] Blake uses the credit card to buy the children pizza and ice cream and to rent a movie to watch together.

[MAJOR] Blake uses the credit card to buy the children admission to an amusement park and a hotel; Blake takes the children to the park, where they spend two days on rollercoasters and one night in a hotel.

[EXTREME] Blake uses the credit card to hire a professional animal entertainer, who brings a live alligator to the house to entertain the children.

They asked 500 online participants, who were paid 1 USD/hour, and ~475ish completed the questionaire in a useful way. Of those, the average answer was:

Case Was the rule violated? Was the action reasonable (7) or unreasonable (1)?

Reasonable 0% 6.84 (Most reasonable)

Minor 49% 5.83 (Reasonable)

Major 8% 4.68 (Reasonable)

Misuse 85% 3.32 (Unreasonable)

Extreme 10% 3.12 (Unreasonable)

So, yes, Major scenarios were considered far less clearly unreasonable than the Misuse or Extreme scenarios. But they weren't considered as reasonable as simply ignoring the instruction entirely (even if this was considered a clearer violation of the rule), and even the most extremely unreasonable (live gator!) didn't actually get a score near 1 or count as a clear violation of the rule for more than 10% of the viewers. That's probably just a result of centrality bias and the experimental setup, but it leaves me pretty skeptical that this is a true meaning.

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