Motivation

A couple things:

(1) I wonder whether Knutson and Peterson’s findings assuage Professor Fisher’s concern that many experimental games don’t last long enough for an endowment effect to kick in, which might skew the results as players more readily part with their money in the games than they would in the real world. Knutson and Peterson observe that, immediately upon receiving cues, anticipated gains anticipated losses are coded differently in the brain. Moreover, experiencing gains immediately produces an increased valence. It is not a far step to assume that some endowment effect is also immediate. Nonetheless, Knutson and Peterson recognize several limitations of their findings. Particularly, they are not sure whether “same or different neural mechanisms drive anticipation of losses.” (p. 313).

(2) A couple real world questions about Singer et al’s findings. Singer found that we emphasize with fair players when they are punished but that we derive pleasure from watching unfair players receive punishments. First, does this have anything to say about strategies by groups seeking to end the death penalty? I remember when Timothy McVeigh was scheduled for execution, some anti-death penalty groups actually thought it would be good if his execution were televised because people would see how terrible execution is. But do Singer’s findings suggest that, if people thought of McVeigh as an uncooperative citizen, the viewing experience would be pleasurable – meaning that anti-death penalty groups are better off winning converts through cold, dispassionate reasoning? Second, I wondered whether Singer’s findings had anything to say about Abu Ghraib. If the American public classified the prisoners there as “unfair,” then they should have received some pleasure from seeing the photos of their treatment. Assuming that many Americans did not receive pleasure from seeing the photos, was it because they hadn’t experienced the prisoners as unfair or uncooperative actors in anyway or did outside moral constraints overcome the instinctive pleasure response?