《考研英語(yǔ)閱讀理解100篇 高分版》 Unit 19 - TEXT THREE

Psychologists have known for a long time that economists are wrong. Most economists—at least, those of the classical persuasion—believe that any financial gain, however small, is worth having. But psychologists know this is not true. They know because of the ultimatum game, the outcome of which is often the rejection of free money.
In this game, one player divides a pot of money between himself and another. The other then chooses whether to accept the offer. If he rejects it, neither player benefits. And despite the instincts of classical economics, a stingy offer (one that is less than about a quarter of the total) is, indeed, usually rejected. The question is, why?
One explanation of the rejectionist strategy is that human psychology is adapted for repeated interactions rather than one-off trades. In this case, taking a tough, if self-sacrificial, line at the beginning pays dividends in future rounds of the game. Rejecting a stingy offer in a one-off game is thus just a single move in a larger strategy. And indeed, when one-off ultimatum games are played by trained economists, who know all this, they do tend to accept stingy offers more often than other people would. But even they have their limits. To throw some light on why those limits exist, Terence Burnham of Harvard University recently gathered a group of students of microeconomics and asked them to play the ultimatum game. All of the students he recruited were men.
Dr. Burnham's research budget ran to a bunch of $40 games. When there are many rounds in the ultimatum game, players learn to split the money more or less equally. But Dr. Burnham was interested in a game of only one round. In this game, which the players knew in advance was final and could thus not affect future outcomes, proposers could choose only between offering the other player $25 (i.e., more than half the total) or $5. Responders could accept or reject the offer as usual. Those results recorded, Dr. Burnham took saliva samples from all the students and compared the testosterone levels assessed from those samples with decisions made in the one-round game.
As he describes in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, the responders who rejected a low final offer had an average testosterone level more than 50% higher than the average of those who accepted. Five of the seven men with the highest testosterone levels in the study rejected a $5 ultimate offer but only one of the 19 others made the same decision.
What Dr. Burnham's result supports is a much deeper rejection of the tenets of classical economics than one based on a slight mis-evolution of negotiating skills. It backs the idea that what people really strive for is relative rather than absolute prosperity. They would rather accept less themselves than see a rival get ahead. That is likely to be particularly true in individuals with high testosterone levels, since that hormone is correlated with social dominance in many species.
Economists often refer to this sort of behaviour as irrational. In fact, it is not. It is simply, as it were, differently rational. The things that money can buy are merely means to an end—social status—that brings desirable reproductive opportunities. If another route brings that status more directly, money is irrelevant.
1. According to the passage, psychologists are different from economists in that _____.
[A] they think any financial gain is worthless if it could not guarantee the ultimatum game
[B] they understand how economists are wrong by proving trivial financial gain could be ignored
[C] they believe that it is necessary to reject some trivial gains to get bigger ones
[D] they have known for a long time that from the perspective of psychology, financial gains are not worth pursuing
2. In the second paragraph, the sentence “In this case, taking a tough, if self-sacrificial, line at the beginning pays dividends in future rounds of the game.” means that _____.
[A] taking an uncompromising attitude at the beginning will lose more in the future rounds of the game
[B] people who are not so calculating at the beginning will get good returns in the end
[C] people who are selfless will get more in the end
[D] taking a tough line at the beginning will pay more cost in the future game
3. The result of Dr. Burnham's study in the one-round game players shows that _____.
[A] men with high testosterone levels are usually more motivated to reject by the low offer
[B] the fact testosterone is closely connected with social dominance proves people could hardly see a rival go ahead
[C] men with high testosterone are more likely to reject the tenets of classical economics
[D] men with high testosterone pay more attention to the relative gains
4. The point Dr. Burnham has concluded from his study is that _____.
[A] money is irrelevant when people seek for reproductive opportunities
[B] people prefer non-financial ways to fulfill their purpose of gaining social status
[C] what people really strive for is relative rather than absolute prosperity
[D] the definition of rationality is different between the fields of economics and psychology
5. Which one of the following statements is TRUE of the behaviour of rejecting a low offer mentioned in the passage?
[A] This kind of behaviour is irrational as a matter of fact.
[B] This kind of behaviour pays more attention to the social status rather than money.
[C] This kind of behaviour could bring desirable reproductive opportunities.
[D] This kind of behaviour is rational from a long view.