My harsh and honest opinion is that this kind of research is useless and is mostly a waste of resources and most likely serves other motives than we may think (narratives, signaling etc).

All experiments with virtual money, with artificial lab setups, with people knowing they are in an experiment are very very biased.

Even if being mean would gain you some money in an artificial experiment, there are other social factors that can counteract this, including pleasing the experiment designers, thinking of yourself as a good person. People probably introspect more in these observed scenarios etc.

You know all those people writing their bachelor and master theses based on questionnaires filled out by random recruits from social media for the chance of winning a gift card? I see tons of those. Are they rigorous and valuable research? Unlikely, but at least they don't get into the press.

We keep falling for this stuff even after the replication crisis, because science is used by the masses as a replacement of the priesthood. People in labcoats must say to us with jargon that compassion is good. We are too afraid of and are still recovering from the shock of the early and crude interpretation of the Darwinian theory. So we crave the "people are good after all" message and when there is demand there will be supply.

Upvoted for the skepticism and the reality of how controlled experiments can produce desirable results that don't replicate.

I still believe people are good after all because I've been conducting a real-world study for nearly 3 years, off-and-on. I started out with a car, no money, and the assumption that I'd gotten good at identifying my needs, asking for them to be meet, and being seen/heard. I now suspect people who are actively working to unlearn their social conditioning are more willing to help others because they're willing to see some aspect of their own humanity in me. That seems to be the trend, at least. When people first see me, they often respond either by showing fear (referring to me as Charles Manson was something a stranger did a couple weeks ago), intrigue/curiosity (asking why I'm dressed the way I am, possibly asking to take a photo), smile and walk away, candidly catch me on film, compliment me for what I'm wearing, or thank me for what I'm wearing. It could also be that people who are unlearning toxic/limiting social norms value seeing others doing the same, which I definitely do with my fashion.

My experiments have led me through many adventures and now I'm writing this while next to my sleeping partner & 19-month old, so I'm not actively testing in the field as much. We're planning on expanding our community during the pandemic to find land to live on and people to live with. That's the next big experiment. We're hoping someone will simply give us land to conduct experiments in community building on.

My experiences could also have a bit to do with the fact that I'm white and perceived as a man, since I have a big beard.

Ultimately, I'd need way more people doing what I'm doing to see what really happens outside the cloak of white privilege.

Most people value prosocial beliefs and behaviors -- and do so more as they acquire life experience. However, there are some who are unable to do so and some who have been conditioned otherwise.

Regardless, the vast majority of people understand and appreciate the benefits of compassion.

These people value compassion, not because a research study informed them that they should, but because, in part, they have observed it for themselves: when they have been compassionate they realized that it made them feel good; when they have seen public policy informed by compassion in communities they saw how those communities thrived.

The intended audience for studies like these are those who want to do good and one benefit to them is to have a better understanding of how to do good more effectively.

And it is okay that not everybody is in that audience; the intended audience, their communities, and society as a whole benefit regardless.

At the same time, billions of people don’t kill the randos they chance upon most days.

How we annotate reality with numbers matters. I feel like your trying to find too specific a claim about reality, not the researchers

You’re isolating these headlines to make them useless.

There’s also tons of rhetoric others, outside your filter bubble, encounter about the end is nigh, send in the troops!

Not every piece of information that we like to share has to be in service of you, 1 in 7 billion

The study itself is more novel and creates more discourse than your comment. Which is a bigger waste of resources? People trying to learn data driven research and habit?

Or your being pedantic about the value as if to dissuade others from such mechanics unless they’re chasing a result you agree with

Yet we seem to spend little time calling for HN to disable comments to avoid the descent into entitled whining about others not achieving what you want, dad

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough, I'll try to be better in the future. I wanted to point out how "scientific research proves people are good after all" type headlines and the foundational problems of psychology as a discipline (including the replication crisis, the shobby practices and huge leaps of conclusion) and the societal need for a calming authority interact.

50 years ago it was all about seeing how we all carry evil within and need to overcome it (Zimbardo, Milgram), today we want to hear "we are fundamentally good". Of course this research is about one specific thing but people don't read it for that reason, just like people don't read many special niche articles usually. This is about us and we seek it out and nod along to these pop sci articles just like people nodded along to a beautiful preach ("of how true were the words of the Father Smith this Sunday"). And I'm not saying science is just another religion, obviously not. But we as a society want it to take on that role.

The issue is best analyzed from the side of why there is so much demand. The question of how the researchers conducted the study is secondary. It's way beyond pedantism on the methodology or trying to say people are bad.

I guess if the above sounds really foreign to you it may take some amount of reading to get a grip on these ideas, which won't fit in this comment. I'm not saying I'm definitely right, but it's at least useful to look at it from this angle.

Generally it’s college students who, despite having no income, are not living in poverty and have plenty of time.

...and who on average have very limited life experience.

A random subset of psych majors is going to have very different characteristics than a random subset of dining hall student employees is going to have very different characteristics than a subset of frat members.

I can't vouch for this particular study, but my experience in college has been that possible differences between 'subset of psych majors' and the rest of the population are among the earliest considerations to, well, consider.

You've just highlighted the key issue with studies, focus groups and marketing research. The population will always be biased - even the responses from the participants are likely to be biased because they are more likely to give a biased response. The insight that you get is marginally useful but nonetheless, it's better than no insight at all.

why would a biased insight be better than no insight? Depends on the amount of biasness, doesn't it?

Because having multiple researches about the same subject but with different biases is the way to eliminate bias with meta analysis studies.

Sometimes participation is required to pass psychology classes.

Indeed though even there you’ll have significant selection bias for psych v.s. other majors.

Selection bias (and mitigation of it) is a big topic, and worth googling, if you're interested. I recommend reading 'Bad Science' by Ben Goldacre, which is a fun read and goes into fascinating detail about various forms of bias in scientific studies and their reporting in the media, and how such problems can be managed.