Hacker News Reader

Either of my children is more likely to behave well when the other is behaving badly. It looks like we humans don't grow up. In the case of children though, it's probably motivated by competition for parental attention. I'm not sure what the motivation might be for Carnegie-Mellon students.

View on HN

For groups of students it's basic tribal identity.

If our tribe decides that, say, downloading mp3s is alright, then we're more likely to download mp3s. If we decide that 'only those clowns from public universities do that' then we are less likely.

What would be interesting, is to see what would happen if the actor had merely proclaimed 'we don't cheat here' while wearing a white shirt. i.e. does the reiteration of a value alter behavior more or less than a specimen of the other tribe?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com