It is no longer online, but very recently, a webpage of the University of Maryland displayed a final exam for students. It offered extra credit—for free! There was no question over some arcane piece of information. A student could choose either 2 or 6 points of extra credit. But like the prisoner in the famous logical dilemma, the student faces a negative consequence if classmates are equally greedy.
@shaunhin I am that professor. Glad you enjoyed it.
— Dylan Selterman (@SelterMosby) July 9, 2015
Dr. Dylan Selterman, professor of psychology, is claiming credit for the question. And what were the results?
@shaunhin It was about 20% of the class that chose 6 points, though after you posted the link a lot of other internet randos filled it out.
— Dylan Selterman (@SelterMosby) July 9, 2015
-via io9
I've seen several PoliSci and game theory professors play similar games with the class. I've had one that would offer to give everyone a perfect score on the final if everyone turned in a blank test, or would make the blank people take a harder version if one person didn't. He's yet to have a class actually pull that off. I've also had a professor that would demonstrate various games with $10-20 cash given to a student a couple students. Plus various experimental economics and psychology programs that would pay out cash based on performance in various market simulations, some of which were much more complicated variations on the prisoner's dilemma.
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As soon as I saw the first picture, I realized that the most practical way to look at it was a choice between 2 extra points and no extra points.
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Next up, Stanford Prison Experiment with undergrads!
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