[MUD-Dev] Fw: [MUD-Dev] Self-organizing worlds (was: Elder Games)

[Kylotan]

Martin Keegan wrote:
>On Tue, 23 Mar 1999, Koster, Raph wrote:
>
>> economies as opposed to real world economies. Turns out there are some
>> fairly significant differences which make traditional economic models
tend
>> to fail. Among these differences is the savings habits of players (eg
>> hoarding). A lot of this went over my head, but apparently the
economists
>> feel that even with an accurate economic model (eg one with huge
ongoing
>> expenditures) there's enough of a difference in the psychology online
that
>> people will not do the same things they do in the real world.
>
>A rather new brach of economics which calls itself Experimental Economics
>(and basically consists of attempting to verify economic axioms in lab
>experiments) has had one really crucial finding: if at the beginning of
>the experiment you hold up a bag and say "this bag contains real money,
>and you'll get a share of it based on your performance in this
>simulation", then the behaviour of the participants is completely
>different, and mirrors real world economic activity much more accurately.

I would argue this totally invalidates the experiment. When you tell
people that they can earn money based on their performance, they will then
try and guess the way in which you want or expect them to perform... which
will generally mimic real-life, maybe not for the reason that it's natural
behaviour, but because it is the behaviour that the participant thinks the
experimenter expects, and will thus stand to earn the participant more
money.

As soon as the participant in an experiment knows what the experimenter
'wants' from the experiment, the study loses validity. -Especially- if the
participant stands to gain from it. This is known as 'demand
characteristics' and references/data can be found in many experimental
psychology textbooks.

Kylotan.




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