It seems that in blogging, it is fashionable to talk, at least a little. So, yes, reader, I confess, I am a hopeless fan of Jim Carrey ... Sorry, reader, if I disappoint you, but I want an authentic comic genius, without hesitation to the height of Jerry Lewis.
Being a fan of his performance in Saturday Night Live, or his imitation of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park to the Oscar ceremony in the presence of Steven Spielberg - memorable scene well-known, but almost all his films (yes, even "Dumb and Dumber" and "Ace Ventura" ...) ...
[ At that point, outraged readers think this is too much - No! Still, not Ace Ventura! - and zap on the blog much classier Olivier Bouba-Olga and friends of Mafeco ]
... I was saying before being interrupted by the thread of my own thoughts, that, being a fan of most of its films, I discovered with delight one of his latest opus, which in my humble opinion One of the best long, "Yes Man."
The pitch in two sentences. Jim is in this film, a sorry fellow who has no taste for life. Whenever any proposal is made for him out of his chronic boredom, he responds negatively, inventing excuses any more deceptive than each other .. So, abandoning his friends and he slowly sinks into chronic depression. He meets then a guru who preaches the gospel, the key to happiness is for him to say "yes" to life, that is to say to agree with all the opportunities that fate offers. To witness by the guru, embodied mischievously by the great Terence Stamp, Jim then agrees to become a "yes man" before the entire community of visionaries who follow this rule of life. Of course, while the spring comedy film comes from the consequences of the multiple proposals that Jim receives and to which he responds eternally "yes".
In fact, it's an interesting movie to illustrate the issue of free will and personal commitment. What got me interested in another time is that, from the standpoint of economic rationality standard (outside of any social preference), once again, the remarks do not hold a second. It is indeed absurd to renounce the possibility to select and optimize for each choice situation. Is it as ridiculous as that?
[ A reader like me already pointed out that most comedies would like to situations or choices that are aberrant, and therefore it is a priori easy to tap into the cinema, to speak of irrationality in conduct, I challenge you: Is there a comedy that relies entirely on the consequences of rational behavior obsequiously in the sense economists? Personally, I do not see, but there may be something to dig for writers in search of inspiration. ]
The pitch in two sentences. Jim is in this film, a sorry fellow who has no taste for life. Whenever any proposal is made for him out of his chronic boredom, he responds negatively, inventing excuses any more deceptive than each other .. So, abandoning his friends and he slowly sinks into chronic depression. He meets then a guru who preaches the gospel, the key to happiness is for him to say "yes" to life, that is to say to agree with all the opportunities that fate offers. To witness by the guru, embodied mischievously by the great Terence Stamp, Jim then agrees to become a "yes man" before the entire community of visionaries who follow this rule of life. Of course, while the spring comedy film comes from the consequences of the multiple proposals that Jim receives and to which he responds eternally "yes".
In fact, it's an interesting movie to illustrate the issue of free will and personal commitment. What got me interested in another time is that, from the standpoint of economic rationality standard (outside of any social preference), once again, the remarks do not hold a second. It is indeed absurd to renounce the possibility to select and optimize for each choice situation. Is it as ridiculous as that?
[ A reader like me already pointed out that most comedies would like to situations or choices that are aberrant, and therefore it is a priori easy to tap into the cinema, to speak of irrationality in conduct, I challenge you: Is there a comedy that relies entirely on the consequences of rational behavior obsequiously in the sense economists? Personally, I do not see, but there may be something to dig for writers in search of inspiration. ]
One interpretation that I'm the film is that, faced with the temptation that Jim has always said no to all proposals, which is the easiest solution for him in the short term, he forced by the moral contract to help do anything but to accept. Again, we are in a problem of procrastination I have frequently mentioned in this blog. We are all aware of the strategies we use to avoid procrastination. One thing to be aware, it is one thing to observe in the laboratory. And then, the empirical evidences are scarce. To my knowledge, apart from the study of Ariely & Wertenbroch in 2001 and that of Trope & Fisbach, there was not much. Furthermore, their studies were not laboratory experiments, which does not diminish their interest, but leads to questions about the degree of control variables involved in the quasi-experimental situations they implement. Regarding the quasi-experiment by Dan Ariely and Klaus Wertenbroch they indeed explain to students that require a duty to succeed in their review they have the opportunity to enter a date of record, knowing that 'They should have made anyway duty before a certain deadline (which corresponds to the end of the academic year). The principle is that if the student chooses a date rendering itself, it is contractual, that is to say that if he does not need to date it has committed, no consideration. On purely rational person should commit to a date prior to rendering the final official date, and all students should reach their effort as late as possible to make their duty simply to record the date of the later.
To their surprise, a large proportion of students committed on dates earlier than the date maximum possible, which, again, is absurd if one assumes that the individual is a rational agent. Trope & Fischbach observe basically the same thing. Subjects which have to perform a medical examination involving unpleasant but abstinence in terms absorption of glucose, is a concession with respect to a prior commitment can take a number of days resulting in a monetary cost of their choosing. A significant proportion of subjects required when significant monetary penalties.
Number of theoretical constructs have been proposed to explain and "rationalize" these phenomena, O'Donogue and Rabin in 1993, Benabou & Tirole 2000, or Gul & Pesendorefer in 2001 and more recently Fudenberg & ; Levine in 2006. In the latter case, the personality of the agent is dual (hence the name dual self model), the agent who somehow two rationales, one short-term that drives him to yield to the temptation, the other long-term enjoins respect a certain intertemporal optimization level. Most of these models, apart from that of Gul & Pesendorfer, imply time inconsistency of choice, which is unfortunate from the standpoint of rationality assumed in economics, which usually raises more comprehensive welfare (mentioned briefly in this previous post).
From the perspective of experience laboratory, this type of observation is rather difficult to achieve. Experience typically lasting at most a couple of hours, how to put participants in situations where any temptation prevents them from maximizing their choice and to accumulate the greatest possible gain? It is this difficulty that I managed to circumvent by Houser, Schunk, Xiaoli & Winter, 2010 " temptation and Commitment in the Lab " in a very recent study . Subjects must perform tasks rather tiresome, these tasks allowing them to accumulate earnings and are being offered the ability to stop to go surfing as they wish on the Internet. The fact of giving in to temptation and go surfing, however, is irrevocable, the participant is not able to return earn points (and therefore dollars) in a repeat of tasks. The subjects can then embark on a number of tasks to be performed, this possibility being no imposed. Failure to carry out their commitment is costly in the experiment, the failure to comply with the resulting negative points that reduces the gain resulting from the accumulation of tasks. A
of the most surprising is that approximately 20% of the subjects committed while the cost of the undertaking is positive. In a recent study that Bonein Aurélie and I have just begun, we get more or less the same conclusion, very surprising from my point of view. 20 to 30% of participants committed to achieve a given number of tasks, some being ready to sacrifice all of their earnings in the event of non compliance with their commitment, and by adopting this contract far from easy to achieve. The main justification for returning most often in the writings of subjects is that they wanted to win and get motivated the most money. I admit that the arms are literally fell me when we found it!
[ player, one thing is to think and speculate that something is possible in terms of behavior, this thing is not rational, but quite another to observe live in a lab, I can tell you that this record quite a adrenaline rush! ]
Therefore, the apparently ludicrous behavior of the "yes man" played by Jim Carrey, this behavior is based on the premise of the film as highly unlikely a priori, very expensive, is far to be a marginal behavior. We are all more or less ready to commit ourselves to control our visceral influences that make us deviate from the path we traced ourselves.
