Pymetrics Games Fairness and Trust Scenarios 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Pymetrics scenario: You're offered a chance to invest company resources in a risky project with a 60% success rate and a 3x return. Your boss prefers safe bets. The decision that best balances fairness to stakeholders is:
- Reject it to avoid any chance of loss
- Accept it since expected value is positive and justified (Correct answer)
- Decide by coin flip to be unbiased
- Delegate the decision to avoid accountability
Correct answer: Accept it since expected value is positive and justified
A positive expected value (60% × 3x = 1.8x) with clear justification balances fiduciary fairness to stakeholders against excessive risk avoidance.
Question 2: In Pymetrics Trust Game variants, 'second-order trust' means:
- Trusting someone who has already trusted you
- Believing that others believe you are trustworthy (Correct answer)
- Extending trust to strangers twice in a row
- Trusting institutional systems over individuals
Correct answer: Believing that others believe you are trustworthy
Second-order trust involves your belief about what others think of your own trustworthiness — a meta-level of social perception.
Question 3: Pymetrics fairness scenario: After a merger, your team absorbs a new group. The new members feel excluded from decisions. The best fairness-building action is:
- Give them time to naturally integrate
- Immediately include them in decision-making processes (Correct answer)
- Have them observe meetings before participating
- Ask your manager to handle integration
Correct answer: Immediately include them in decision-making processes
Procedural fairness — giving people voice in decisions — is one of the fastest ways to build trust after organizational change.
Question 4: You repeatedly cooperate in a Pymetrics iterated Prisoner's Dilemma but your partner defects every time. The most effective strategy to restore fair play is:
- Continue cooperating to model good behavior
- Always defect from now on to maximize your score
- Switch to Tit-for-Tat: mirror your partner's last move (Correct answer)
- Quit the game to signal disapproval
Correct answer: Switch to Tit-for-Tat: mirror your partner's last move
Tit-for-Tat is proven to restore cooperation by rewarding cooperation and immediately punishing defection without permanent grudges.
Question 5: Pymetrics measures 'effort discounting' in fairness contexts. Which scenario shows effort discounting?
- Valuing a handmade gift less than a store-bought one of equal price
- Valuing a handmade gift more than a store-bought one of equal price (Correct answer)
- Refusing gifts from colleagues on principle
- Giving the same reward regardless of effort spent
Correct answer: Valuing a handmade gift more than a store-bought one of equal price
Effort discounting is the opposite — people tend to value things MORE when they know effort was invested, not less.
Question 6: In Pymetrics social value orientation (SVO) tasks, a 'prosocial' individual will most likely:
- Maximize their own payoff regardless of the partner's
- Maximize joint gain and minimize the difference between payoffs (Correct answer)
- Always give the partner more than themselves
- Minimize the partner's payoff to reduce competition
Correct answer: Maximize joint gain and minimize the difference between payoffs
Prosocial SVO is defined by maximizing joint outcomes and reducing payoff inequality, balancing efficiency and fairness.
Question 7: A Pymetrics scenario shows two job candidates: Candidate A has better qualifications; Candidate B is a personal friend of the hiring manager. Hiring Candidate B violates which fairness principle?
- Distributive fairness
- Procedural fairness
- Meritocratic fairness (Correct answer)
- Restorative fairness
Correct answer: Meritocratic fairness
Meritocratic fairness requires rewards and opportunities to be allocated based on qualifications and performance, not personal relationships.
Pymetrics Games Fairness and Trust Scenarios 4
Pymetrics scenario: You're offered a chance to invest company resources in a risky project with a 60% success rate and a 3x return.
Your boss prefers safe bets.
The decision that best balances fairness to stakeholders is: