Reading comp PrepTest 131 · Section 4 · Question 23

Topic: Social Science

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • Experiment description (proposer offers to split $100; if responder disagrees with offer, neither get money)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Comparison, according to the author:
    • After the proposer offers to split $100 with the responder, if the responder accepts, they get the agreed-upon split; on the other hand, if the responder rejects the offer, neither get any money (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Results of "Ultimatum Game" (most offers are close to 50/50; low offers are usually rejected) and question (why would anyone reject?)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Comparisons, according to the author:
    • Most offers are between 40-50% (fourth sentence)
    • Most responders reject offers less than 20% (sixth sentence)
  • Author's view:
    • It's a puzzle why anyone would reject an offer as too small, as accepting any offer would give the responder more money than rejecting that offer (seventh through last sentence)
    • If we assume that people make economic decisions out of rational self-interest (as theoretical economics posit), then responders should accept (last sentence)
  • Author's attitude: "seem instinctively" (third sentence); "'fair'" (third sentence); "quite risky" (sixth sentence); "puzzle" (seventh sentence); "one assumes" (last sentence); "one would expect" (last sentence)

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • One answer (based on a prehistoric need for strong groups, bad to outcompete others in a group) and author's response (can only explain "fair" offers)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Theorists's answer:
    • Prehistoric humans relied on other members in a group, so it wasn't worth it to outcompete rivals — you relied on them in the future (first through third sentences)
  • Author's view:
    • This answer might explain fair offers, but it doesn't explain why people reject low offers (last sentence)
  • Author's attitude: "at best" (last sentence); "not why" (last sentence)

Paragraph 4

• Paragraph note
  • Author's answer (rejecting low offers helped us survive, so we instinctively reject low offers to boost our self-esteem) and rebuttal of counterpoint (we can’t distinguish between repeated and one-time encounters)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Author's view:
    • Humans evolved in small groups with no secrets (first sentence)
    • So, we needed to build a reputation as someone who angrily rejected low offers, ensuring that we'd continue to get fair offers (of food, e.g.) (third through fifth sentences)
  • Cause-and-effect relationship, according to the author:
    • Rejecting low offers caused us to receive fair offers, which caused us to survive, which causes us to reject low offers in the Ultimatum Game (fourth, fifth, and seventh sentences)
    • We instinctively reject low offers to boost our self-esteem, which causes us to angrily reject low offers, which causes us to get a reputation that is beneficial for future encounters (seventh and last sentences)
  • Comparison, according to the author:
    • Because "one-time, strictly anonymous" interactions like the Ultimatum Game were rare in human history, we act the same way in the Ultimatum Game than we would in a group that repeatedly interacts (second and sixth sentences)
  • Author's attitude: "more compelling" (first sentence); "has been shaped" (first sentence); "hard to keep secrets" (first sentence): "not finely tuned to one-time, strictly anonymous interactions" (second sentence); "should have favored angry responses" (fifth sentence); "our emotions do not discriminate between one-shot and repeated interactions" (sixth sentence); "we instinctively feel the need to reject dismal offers in order to keep our self-esteem" (seventh sentence); "self-esteem helps us to acquire a reputation that is beneficial in future encounters" (last sentence)

Main Point: Although rejecting low offers in the Ultimatum Game is seemingly not in the responder's self-interest, a compelling explanation says that we instinctively reject low offers to boost our self-esteem, which helped us maximize our share of the resources as we evolved in small groups.

Question/Answer: This passage best fits the Question/Answer Meta-Structure.* In such a passage, the author poses a question early on, and the rest of the passage attempts to answer that question. In this passage, the author asks, "Why would anyone reject an offer as too small [in the Ultimatum Game]?" (P2, S8). It's puzzling because, even if you rejected the dismal offer of $1, you still choose to leave the game with $0 instead of $1. Of course, $1 is better than $0.

In a Question/Answer passage, the main point is generally the answer that the author provides or endorses. In this passage, that answer comes in the last paragraph. It's a bit confusing, so let's take it step by step.

First, the response is instinctive, based on our evolution in small groups. We can't help but feel angered by low offers.

Second, we feel this way we do because, as we evolved in small, prehistoric groups, we had to maintain a good reputation. If we got a reputation as a chump who accepted small offers of food, we'd be stuck with small offers of food for the rest of our short and famished lives. And then we probably couldn't survive. Today, we're the products of the ancestors who survived. And to survive, they angrily rejected low offers, ensuring they'd receive fair offers. These fair offers helped them survive. Today, we feel the automatic need to reject low offers to maintain our self-esteem — since we're the evolutionary products of our proud ancestors who angrily rejected low offers.

Finally, the author addresses an issue with this explanation: The Ultimatum Game is not like the offers made in those prehistoric small groups ... like, at all. The Ultimatum Game is between two strangers who may never interact again. Unlike the prehistoric small group, it doesn't matter if the "proposer" in the Ultimatum Game thinks you're a chump. The author explains that one-time, anonymous interactions like the Ultimatum Game were rare in our evolutionary history. So, our emotions don't really distinguish between offers made in a group we have to live with and offers made by a stranger we'll probably never speak to again. If the offer is low in either context, we'll angrily reject that offer to maintain our self-esteem.

Now, summarizing this answer for the main point is difficult. Fortunately, the author provided a decent summary in the last two sentences of the passage. We can refer to those sentences when we need to consult the passage's main point. Or, we can condense them further for our anticipated main point.

*But, OK, if you called this a Paradox/Resolution or Phenomenon/Explanation passage, we certainly won't argue with you. If you classified the passage this way, the paradox or phenomenon is why people consistently act in a way that defies their rational self-interest in the Ultimatum Game. The resolution or explanation is that it's an emotional, instinctive response that is based on us behaving rationally to maximize our share of resources and chance of survival as we evolved in small groups.

Causality: Cause-and-effect relationships are the most prominent minor Meta-Structure in the passage. In fact, we could argue that the entire last paragraph is one long, causal chain. In prehistoric groups, rejecting low offers caused our ancestors to receive fair offers, which caused them to be more likely to survive, which causes us to get instinctively angered by low offers in the Ultimatum Game, which causes us to reject low offers in the Ultimatum Game to boost our self-esteem, which would cuase us to get a reputation that would be beneficial in future encounters (if the Ultimatum Game wasn't a one-time thing). That's a lot to remember, so let's simplify it: Rejecting low offers helped our ancestors survive, which causes us to instinctively, angrily reject low offers in the Ultimatum Game.

One easy-to-miss element of this passage is the interaction between the position of the theoretical economists and the author's resolution. Those economists assume that people make decisions "primarily out of rational self-interest," which leads to the expectation that individuals would accept any offer as it would make them better off (P2, S9). It's easy to think that the Ultimatum Game disproves the rational self-interest theory. However, what the author actually puts forward in their explanation is that the results of the Ultimatum Game line up with this assumption to a certain extent.

It's rational and in someone's self-interest to reject low offers because, in normal situations, that would maximize how many resources we'd get over time. It's just in this weird, "one-time, strictly anonymous" interaction that it doesn't make sense. So, while it would be in a person's rational self-interest to accept a low offer in the Ultimatum Game, it wouldn't be in that person's rational self-interest to accept such a low offer in real life. That's a much more subtle conclusion than saying that the economists are wrong, and there may very well be a question about it.