X's & Y's

I learned a lot about myself today in my psychology class through a short experiment entitled "X's and Y's."

Dr. Miller started by passing out 10 notecards to 10 of us at random. I was one of these 10. He then explained that we were going to play a game...

Each of us were to write either an X or a Y on the notecard and hand it in. For every Y, everyone would get "$100". However, if you were to write an X, you would get "$100" for every Y as well as an extra "$300."

Hmm... Think that through for a minute...What would you pick?...

What if you choose X and everyone else does as well? Then you're not going to make much money....Unless everyone else were to choose Y....

If you picked an X, you are guaranteed to make as much or more than everybody else.

However, if you picked a Y, you may not necessarily make as much as everyone else, but you would be helping everyone else to make more.

Did you decide to look only at yourself and how much YOU could make? Or was your choice based on what would most benefit the group?

I think there's a lot to be learned about yourself from your choice...