‘This explains voting behavior’: A social experiment is making people lose faith in humanity on TikTok
If a professor offers everybody in your class a flat 95% for your final exam, would you accept it? The caveat is that everyone has to vote unanimously for it. The answer isn’t as intuitive as it should be.
TikTok user Hannah explained that over a decade ago in her Intro to Psychology university class, she and her 250 classmates were stressing over finals week. Their professor noticed this and offered to give everyone a 95% mark without having to take the test. His only condition was that everyone had to unanimously vote yes in order to get the 95%. Surprisingly, not everyone agreed—20 people voted against it.
There were five options to the question. The first option is yes—simply because they want the grade. Succeeding options were different variations of no. One option for rejecting the 95% is for people who believe they can do better. The following option is for people who think they don’t deserve the 95%. The last option is for people who couldn’t accept that those who didn’t study as hard weren’t entitled to the same grade. Shockingly, Hannah claimed that all 20 people who voted against the guaranteed 95% grade chose the last category.
Her then professor reminded the class, “This is the most important psychological lesson I will teach you this semester.” The professor revealed that they have been repeating the same experiment for over ten years with different classes, and not one had unanimously voted for the 95%. The reason this kept happening was because there was always someone who doesn’t want others to have what they have—all because they think other people don’t deserve it. The professor continued, “Statistically, only 10% of you will get a 95% or above.”
Largely, but not unanimously, disappointed
Many of the TikTok replies to Hannah’s videos were disgusted at the results of the small experiment. One wrote, “It’s not that I must win, it’s that others must lose.” There are a few who tried to defend the people who’d vote no—all because the 95% grade would be “meaningless.” The discourse was largely awash against that notion.
Others even linked the results of the small social experiment with voting behavior. One wrote on Twitter, “This explains our country and voting as well.” TikTok users also cited the example of why so many people are against universal healthcare or student loan forgiveness. While many are quick to call this greed, perhaps a more apt word is jealousy. They are voting against the welfare of others simply because they believe they’ve sacrificed more and have worked harder. It’s of no loss to these people to vote for everyone to get 95%, except perhaps it hurts their feelings to see others succeed with them.
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