Sunday, July 08, 2007

Human variation and the ultimatum game   posted by Razib @ 7/08/2007 11:36:00 PM
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A few days ago I posted on results which suggest a positive relationship between high testosterone and rejection of low offers in non-iterated "ultimatum games." I just noticed that the paper is open access, so I suggest you read it yourself. I will note two things:

1) The subjects were Harvard students who had taken at least two semesters of microeconomics. I don't know if offering this sample of students $40 is a good model for a realistic experiment (the typical Harvard student is rather affluent).

2) Though not statistically significant (the N was small) the authors did find that high testosterone males also offered more than low testosterone males. This might relate to the rather inexplicable generosity that alpha males in tribal bands exhibit when it comes to sharing out the proceeds of the hunt.

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