The surprise level (and so the information content) of this new study is very low. “Fool me once...” and such. And I cannot imagine whether there is anything interesting one can potentially learn from it even after tracking the participants two decades later. Maybe that the trusting suckers in the first group continue to get conned throughout their lives?
Maybe that the trusting suckers in the first group continue to get conned throughout their lives?
It’s the trusting suckers who have better life outcomes in the classic experiment, so that would be surprising. But I look at the new study as support for a vase/faces style reframing of the original as “not actually about willpower,” rather than as something which is supposed to be surprising on its own.
The surprise level (and so the information content) of this new study is very low. “Fool me once...” and such. And I cannot imagine whether there is anything interesting one can potentially learn from it even after tracking the participants two decades later. Maybe that the trusting suckers in the first group continue to get conned throughout their lives?
It’s the trusting suckers who have better life outcomes in the classic experiment, so that would be surprising. But I look at the new study as support for a vase/faces style reframing of the original as “not actually about willpower,” rather than as something which is supposed to be surprising on its own.