The researcher could take you to a large state-certified casino (which I think we can trust not to rig their games) and offer you two options:
A) pay you $55 straight up, or
B) place both a $30 bet on red and a $30 bet on black (this nets you $60 unless it lands on 0 or 00, so a 18⁄19 chance of $60)
She could also offer you other combinations of bets that add up to the second pair of Allais gambles.
Do you predict that if an Allais experiment were done in this sort of trustworthy situation, the effect would disappear?
Well, there’s only one thing to be done then. I’ll be waiting at Caesar’s Palace; you bring the experimental funds.
Anyhow, the primary reason I disagree with you is that most people just don’t expected to be cheated outright in psychology experiments; again and again it’s found that the majority of subjects trust the experimenters.
Take for example the study on guilt where the volunteer signed up more often for a painful experiment if he thought he had broken an expensive machine, when in fact it was rigged to appear to break. You’d find different behavior if most of the subjects were suspicious at the outset.
I don’t have primary literature with me now, so this is from the Wikipedia article
Allais asserted that, presented with the choice between 1A and 1B, most people would choose 1A, and presented with the choice between 2A and 2B, most people would choose 2B. This has been borne out in various studies involving hypothetical and small monetary payoffs, and recently with health outcomes.
You don’t expect to be cheated in a hypothetical. You don’t expect to be cheated by a doctor giving probabilities of different outcomes.
ETA: Here’s an abstract, but the paper itself is gated.
The researcher could take you to a large state-certified casino (which I think we can trust not to rig their games) and offer you two options: A) pay you $55 straight up, or B) place both a $30 bet on red and a $30 bet on black (this nets you $60 unless it lands on 0 or 00, so a 18⁄19 chance of $60)
She could also offer you other combinations of bets that add up to the second pair of Allais gambles.
Do you predict that if an Allais experiment were done in this sort of trustworthy situation, the effect would disappear?
Yes, I do.
Well, there’s only one thing to be done then. I’ll be waiting at Caesar’s Palace; you bring the experimental funds.
Anyhow, the primary reason I disagree with you is that most people just don’t expected to be cheated outright in psychology experiments; again and again it’s found that the majority of subjects trust the experimenters.
Take for example the study on guilt where the volunteer signed up more often for a painful experiment if he thought he had broken an expensive machine, when in fact it was rigged to appear to break. You’d find different behavior if most of the subjects were suspicious at the outset.
I don’t have primary literature with me now, so this is from the Wikipedia article
You don’t expect to be cheated in a hypothetical. You don’t expect to be cheated by a doctor giving probabilities of different outcomes.
ETA: Here’s an abstract, but the paper itself is gated.
ETA2: Paper!