At 10:37 AM 1/24/2002 +0000, Ken Brown wrote: >How unusual. All I am left with is the trite insight that in human >beings (and I suspect any species with a decent memory in which males >play, or can play, a significant part in rearing offspring) assessment >of reputation is, if not hard-wired, pretty much universal. And the only >way it /can/ work is by assuming that he who can be trusted in small >things can be trusted in great. You tend to believe that someone who >lies and cheats about little things can't be trusted with big things. So >the most successful liar is someone who remains scrupulously honest >until the moment comes for lying. (So maybe you should never marry >anyone you haven't often played cards with!) Not exactly >ground-breaking. > >Ken
Over a decade ago I learned from published work that if a logical problem is posed as cheating (an underage person trying to buy ethanol IIRC) humans are much much better at solving the logical problem than if it is expressed otherwise. Some cog scis think this is evidence of hardwiring for social cheating perception.
