Haidt-based morality test
Want to compare yourself to liberals and conservatives on a bunch of tests of knowledge, morals, and values based on Jonathan Haidt’s research? Go here; it’s kind of fun.
I took the tests and, as you might guess, some of the time I came in right smack between liberals and conservatives, and the rest of the time I resembled conservatives.
I also did very well (perfect score!) on the three math questions (from a test they seem to have now removed). Here they are, folks. I expect my exceptionally intelligent and analytically-inclined readers (in other words, all of my readers) to get a perfect score, too:
1. A bat and ball together cost $1.10. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
2. If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?
3. In a lake there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half the lake?
I’m going with:
1. 10 cents
2. 5 minutes
3. 47 days
The trickiness of that first one is superb. You just fly through the easy math of 10 cents and one dollar and never realize the latter is not one dollar more than the former.
You forgot the first rule: The first answer is never right.
Are we conservatives more likely to get the correct solutions to these 3 math questions than liberals?
“Are we conservatives more likely to get the correct solutions to these 3 math questions than liberals?”
No, we’re less likely to exclaim, “I was told their would be no math (in life).”
Those three math questions are part of the “test your knowledge” study, which is third from the bottom in the “complete list of studies”.
Despite my tantrum the other day, I went ahead and went over and took some of the tests so far. I am pretty stretched, as for sleep, and I am… different. I don’t really trend right or left, in spite of being quite conservative. Though my politics is based on my faith which quite often does make it quite different.
I was having difficulty with some of their terminology though. I finally noticed a place to write the authors, and did on that one, the last one I took… something about them referring to ‘Not stealing because it wasn’t fair’. Stealing isn’t fair or unfair, it is right or wrong. I will… probably be making a lot more comments on terms and… idea shifts I have noticed where my options aren’t really present or I feel one whole area of notions is simply missing. I do sense these were written by and for liberals, sorry, but it’s just… there.
Still, it… is entertaining, so far. My guess though is part of the reason, as I think about it, that I am even more off is that I won’t go along with things that don’t make sense… Just… giving you some feedback on my experiences.
Mark, your first answer is incorrect.
5 cents.
Your other answers are right.
I’m going with…
1. 5 cent
2. one minute
3. 47 days
God, I suck at math. If conservative are supposed to be better at math, I should be a genius but Im not.
1. OK, the answer is $0.05 because if it were $.10 then the bat would be only be $.95 more right?
2. Thats a ratio but it would take me most the day to come up how to work that out and then Id still be wrong.
3. y = a^x?
1. It’s not fair that a bat should cost so much more than a ball! That’s why ghetto kids play basketball instead — no bat to worry about. And what about the ghetto girls?
2. And how many laborers did those machines displace? It’s not fair. (And who built those machines anyway? Did workers build that? The bossman sure didn’t.)
3. Depends. If the patch were lily-white, 47 days. If not, it’s not fair to require thinking things through from the european dead white man’s cultural perspective.
It’s not FAIR, I tell you. It’s not fair.
1. Bat plus ball equal $1.10. Bat costs $1.00 more than ball. Bat = x and ball =y.
x+ $!.00 + y = $1.10 Subtract $1.00 from both sides leaving x+y = .10. By examination only x=y or each equals .05 satisfies the parameters. Or, stated another way, only a bat costing $1.05 and ball costing .05 provide a total of $1.10 where the bat costs $1.00 more than the ball.
2. 1 machine takes 5 minutes to make 1 widget.
Therefore, 100 machines can make 100 widgets in 5 minutes.
3. The last double is from half the lake covered to completely covered. Therefore, it takes 47 days to cover the first half.
Thanks for the attempt to explain it JJ, but only your second explanation makes sense to me. Back to the books I guess.
Methinks JJ complicated it needlessly.
Try my version, s’il vous plait . . .
Bat plus ball equal $1.10.
Bat costs $1.00 more than ball. So . . .
Bat = x + 1 and ball =x;
x + 1 + x = 1.10;
i.e., 2x + 1 = 1.10;
Subtract 1 from both sides leaving 2x = .10;
Therefore x = .05 (and x + 1 = 1.05);
End of solution (no “examination” needed).
These problems were constructed to make the point that our first instincts are often misleading. There’s a tremendous temptation to immediately answer 0.10, 100 minutes, and 24 days. So, is the idea of including these questions in the morality test that liberals often go with their first impressions, while conservatives step back and take a second look?
As to #3, if today’s qty. is double yesterday’s qty., then yesterday’s qty. must be 1/2 of today’s qty. Therefore, the 47th day had 1/2 the amount of the 48th day.
There are correct answers and then there are politically correct answers. Good one, M J R.
I answered 10¢ on #1, but I got #2 & 3 right.
Karl Denninger has employed the lily pad analogy on several occasions, to explain our situation with regard to debt:
What You Simply MUST Understand
Meanwhile, Back At The Lily Pad…
The bat gets $1 more than the ball. So pay equal amounts to the bat and the ball, then give an extra $1 to the bat.
So, call the equal amounts x . . . eek, that’s algebra. Too hard. What if we try doing it backwards?
Give the bat his extra dollar. Then divide the rest (i.e. the dime) equally. $1.05 for the bat, $0.05 for the ball. Quite Easily Done.
‘The trickiness of that first one is superb. ‘
No, it took me almost ten seconds to get all three answers. It’s basic algebra. I don’t get it. Where is the trick?
There was a study recently, linked by Instapundit, I think, that showed that these kinds of questions ARE tricky, and we OFTEN get the wrong answers. That’s because they look so easy that people don’t even think about doing basic math — the intuitively correct answer just seems to just leap out, but of course, these turn out to be wrong answers. Once you tell yourself not to jump to conclusions, then yes, the correct answer can be worked out easily enough.
The reason I asked how this correlated with liberalism or conservatism is that conservatism often requires that kind of counter-intuitive thinking — “No, the best way to help poor people is not to give them money,” etc. — and I wondered if Haidt was making those kinds of assertions.
MJR: Your explanation sounds more graspable to me but and i understand x= ball but how do we get x + 1 + x = 1.10? I can see how that would make sense in that when you combine the terms you get 2x which when x (x=.10) is divided, renders .05, but where did 2x come from if there’s only one ball?
I know, it should make sense to me already. Im a bad conservative.
The first inkling I had that math and lefties do not mix well was when I started grad school in the early 1980s and made a remark about tax rates to my roommate, a grad student in anthropology who had gotten his BA in philosophy.
I pointed out that with the tax rates before the Reagan changes took place, inflation could put you in a higher tax bracket even though your real income had not changed or had actually declined. Up through 1981, with high inflation, this was so.
My roommate’s reaction: “That’s a very right wing thing to say.”
This was coupled with my on the ground observation of Latin America which led me to the conclusion that the “progressive” catechism on Latin America did not accurately describe the place.
Maybe I am becoming an evil right winger, I thought to myself.
MJR,
Thanks for putting #1 in proper form. I’m 44 years out from my last formal algebra study andwas not that good at solving word problems even then. As I demonstrated. (;> }
Harry,
not MJR but
x = price of the lower-priced ball,
x + $1.00 = price of higher-priced ball
both of them together equals $1.10, thus
x + x + 1.00 = 1.10 or
2x + 1.00 = 1.10 or
2x = 0.10 or
x = 0.05 cents
oops, I misremembered the problem wrong and I think I made that even more unintelligible.
make that
x = price of the ball
x + $1.00 = price of the bat
Thanks reticent but I dont think it will ever occur to me in a future similar to consider ball + ball + 1.00. Theres nothing so far for me that would logically connect that in that way. I guess Im fried.
You want a tough math problem, try the
Monty Hall Problem
reticent did my job for me (whilst I was spending time with my loving wife).
Maybe another look at it would have been to include an additional step:
ball = x;
bat = x + 1;
ball + bat = 1.10;
now substitute in:
x + x+1 = 1.10
and then the two x’s will combine:
2x + 1 = 1.10
and take it from there!
The first one is tricky, I’ve seen it before and missed it the first time, even this time I had to think it through again. The other two I did get.
maybe best for me to think about it as:
ball = x
Combined cost = x+1?
In that way, if we were working the cost of bat, ball and glove…and the whole package cost $50 and the bat cost $1 more than the ball…
ball = x
glove = y
Combined cost=x+y+50…what would I do with the $1?
Oh, never mind. Dont worry. i dont work anywhere I have to do math but would like to be able to work stuff like this out some day.
I struggle with numbers and frequently appeal for help to members of my family who have math built into their bones — but nonetheless, I got these right because it was obvious that they were trick questions. My brain warned, “Hang on, if these were as easy as they look, they wouldn’t be on a quiz. Read ’em again and think.” Does this make me a conservative, or just a person who’s old enough to have made a fool of herself by leaping before looking quite a few times by now?
These problems illustrate one of the “basic rules”* I learned (the hard way) as a computer operator/programmer. When we do complicated tasks, we know they’re complicated and therefore pay attention. When we do seemingly simple tasks, we assume we don’t need to pay attention, therefore we get sloppy. Therefore, we’re more likely to screw uo the simple stuff than the complicated stuff.
*Another basic rule : taking things apart is easier than putting them back together.
Rich is right. These problems aren’t about the math, though Harry is on the right track to consider costs; you obviously can’t add bats and balls and end up with an answer in units of money.
The problems explore how our brains work. I like to think these things are similar to the problem of the gazelle in tall grass. The gazelle sees movement in the grass. The question is this–was it the wind or a lion? What is the best way to solve the problem, i.e. which solution leaves me among the living gazelles?
These math problems show a person disposition to see and solve in a particular way. Anyone with very basic algebra skills can solve the first, but the other two are logic problems. The first seems at first glance to be a straightforward ten to one comparison with the answer, obviously, indicated by the amount shown. The unwary leap.
The other problems appeal to our desire to work with simple math, linear projections and the normal curve. The world, however, is not always linear and normal.
I think the real dividing line here is not liberal or conservative but a willingness to dig a bit deeper and accept the evidence of experimentation over preconceived belief, though this may be too hard on conservatives at the moment when liberals have closed their eyes on many issues and dug in to preserve their position. Liberals, in other words, are trying to ‘conserve’ their place; they’ve become reactionaries.
J.J. formerly Jimmy J. Says:
September 3rd, 2012 at 5:04 pm
“1. Bat plus ball equal $1.10. Bat costs $1.00 more than ball. Bat = x and ball =y.
x+ $!.00 + y = $1.10 Subtract $1.00 from both sides leaving x+y = .10. By examination only x=y or each equals .05 satisfies the parameters. Or, stated another way, only a bat costing $1.05 and ball costing .05 provide a total of $1.10 where the bat costs $1.00 more than the ball.”
LOL That’s the way that seemed most obvious to me too … visualized as geometry rather than real algebra.
Push 100 to the side as the stipulated “more”. The residue is 10. From it two equal or potentially cancelling addends are needed, which when added up = the residue value of 10. Halves cancel.
3. In a lake there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half the lake?
The lily pad patch doubles every day. Therefore, the total area of the lake, “The Pond” — (presumably the Atlantic Ocean) — increases by a factor of 2^48 (2 to the power of 48) over its initial size on day zero.
2^48 is very approximately 280,000,000,000,000 or 280 trillion.
Suppose that each lily pad is typically half a square yard in area. There are 3,097,600 square yards in a square mile or about 6 million lily-pad areas in a square mile.
The size of the lake is therefore: 280 trillion; divided by 6 million; square miles in area, or 47 million square miles.
The area of the Atlantic Ocean is about 41 million square miles.
On the 47th day (after day zero), the lily pad lake is the size of (say) the North Atlantic and on the 48th day it is the size of the whole Atlantic Ocean. (Yeah, right!)
Suppose that the lake is always circular. On the 47th day the radius of the lake would be 2735 miles and on the 48th day, 3868 miles. The radius edge of the pond would expand on average at 47 mph.
All of this pie-in-the-sky stuff reminds me of the practicalities of socialist / liberal economics!
I believe that the questions come from Kahneman’s (sp?) work on thinking fast and slow. Not sure why they have anything to do with Haidt other than both are psych profs.
The first problem is superbly set to fool all those who don’t know how to solve a set of linear equations (See M J R: 2x + $1.00 = $1.10).
But it also fools those who do know the simple solution but do not use it because they don’t take the time. The first requirement is easily met by the two terms of the sum: $.1 + $1.00 = $1.10. That is a solution to the first requirement that total cost is $1.10. Not the only solution but a solution. Now, since your brain has $1.10 on its mind, it equates the $1.10 with the $1.00 and noting that $1.10 is $.1 more than $1.00 assumes the second requirement is met. Once this is done, the solip’sistic play is complete because the mind did not notice it had accepted an incorrect price for the value of the bat.
I would bet the first problem gets more wrong answers than the other two, with the second being close behind.
I took one of the tests, unfortunately being a member a an oft neglected minority group I counldn’t see the results. I’m very color blind, LOL, where do I sign up for my disability check?
Im more of an ideas guy anyway…
rickl Says:
September 3rd, 2012 at 6:59 pm
And he did it again today:
ISM: Oh Oh
Folks, be careful. There’s a math instructor in the house.
I know that others have already weighed in on these, but here’s my explanation:
(1) If a bat and ball cost a total of $1.10 and the bat is $1 more than the ball, then the commonly assumed $0.10 for the ball plus the $1.10 which the bat would cost would make no sense:
(a) Either you’d realize that the total is $1.20 or
(b) If the bat is $1.10, then the ball is “free,” which would be $1.10 less than the bat.
You would use algebra. If x is the cost of the ball and x + 1 is the cost of the bat (where x is in dollars), then x + x + 1 = 2x + 1 = 1.10, or
2x = 0.10, or x = 0.05. A quick check would show that $0.05 for the ball and $1.05 for the bat meet the conditions of the problem.
(2) If 5 machines make 5 widgets in 5 minutes, then 1 machine makes 1 widget in 1 minute (by proportions). Therefore, it takes 100 machines 100 minutes to make the 100 widgets.
(3) Surprisingly, half the lake is covered on the 47th day, because if the lily pad doubles in size and the lake is covered on the 48th day, it was half-covered one day earlier.
Please don’t sweat the math. I think these may be more common sense than anything else.
For the math teacher, (sheldan)
I’m pretty sure you got the widget one wrong. The mistake is to do 5 / 5 and get 1 when its really 5 minutes per widget with each machine making 1 widget. That would mean the 100 Widgets would also take 5 minutes at 1 widget per machine by 100 machines.
Follow up on the widget question. The 1 widget per machine per minute would mean 5 Widgets per machine per 5 minutes.
To quote Akbar, “It’s a trap!”
I used to live in New Orleans where, out on the bayeaux, lily pads will make all the channels unnavigable in about 5 minutes.
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OK
1. 1.05 + 5 = 1.10
The bat is 1.00 more than the ball.
2) If 5 machines take 5 minutes to make 5 balls, then 1 machine takes 5 minutes to make 1 ball. Therefore, 100 machines will take 5 minutes to make 100 balls. The time to make the ball didn’t change.
3) On the 48th day, the pond is full. Therefore, on the 47th day, it was 1/2 full.
These kinds of questions are fun – they require you to think. They are a good test of the ability to think mathematically, without having to actually USE formal math.
“how long would it take for the patch to cover half the lake”
One day or 47 days. 47 days to cover the first half, one day to cover the second half.
“tests of knowledge, morals, and values”
Required registration. Too much trouble. I wonder what the questions would be on a similar test in 166 BC or 1517 AD? Would everyone present now test as a liberal?
Was I the only person who skipped the math, and took all the tests at the site, LOL?
…of which, I found that I’m slightly to the right of Herod.
Well, I didn’t “find” exactly, as I was pretty sure I was.
…apparently a “kind” Herod, though. A rather independent and kind to-the-right-of-Herod.
Ball costs $.05
5 minutes
47 days.
P.S., Rob is right, Sheldan. You messed up on #2.
Rob: They’re ALL traps, since they are designed to lead you the wrong way by how they’re worded. S’funny, as I thought that #1 was the most subtle of them, but Sheldan got that one and missed what I thought was the easiest.
}}} So, is the idea of including these questions in the morality test that liberals often go with their first impressions, while conservatives step back and take a second look?
Or that conservatives THINK, and libtards “feel” — and that there are classes of problems that “feeling” your way through doesn’t work.