Psychology professor's tricky extra credit question goes viral

Jaleesa Jones | college.usatoday.com

One professor’s final exam went viral after Shahin Rafikian, a rising junior at the University of Maryland, shared its extra credit question on Twitter:

The “evil genius” behind the twisted question? Dr. Dylan Selterman.

But, as the psychology lecturer explained to USA TODAY College, he can't take credit for the exercise.

“I first learned about this when I was in a college," Selterman, who attended Johns Hopkins University, says. "My professor, Steve Drigotas, used this exercise with my class."



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Selterman says the exercise was originally published in a psychology journal 25 years ago and has since been adapted by a number of his colleagues. He says it’s intended to illustrate the tragedy of the commons.

“[The tragedy of the commons is] basically a dilemma between doing what’s good for you as an individual versus doing what’s best for the group,” he explains. “Now it stands to reason that people behave selfishly. But if too many people behave selfishly, the group will suffer… and then everyone in the group individually will suffer.”

Selterman says only one class -- his fall 2011 group -- has received the extra credit since he first implemented the exercise in 2008. But he speculates it may have merely been a fluke.

“In behavioral science, nothing is ever 100%,” he says.



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Selterman says that he believes most students select the six-point option by way of a “go big or go home” mentality. Others, he says, may do it out of fear of being slighted.

“You’re trying to anticipate what other people are doing,” he says. “If other people get six points, they want six points, too. They want to be among those who score the highest.”

And, as Selterman adds, this need to maximize personal gain transcends the world of academia.

“The extra credit question is analogous to any public resource in the world that we would all use like food or water or land,” he says. “Again, if people are mindful of their own consumption, then it’s fine, but if too many people are selfish, then we have now -- like in California -- water shortages.”

Rafikian -- whose tweet has since been shared more than 6,000 times -- told USA TODAY College: "I honestly wasn't expecting this tweet to go viral. It was really interesting though to see how people would respond to the question and what they thought was the 'right' choice."



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He adds that he was shocked to discover that he was an outlier in the exercise.

"I was surprised and disappointed -- surprised by not only how 20% of the class chose six points but also by how many responses on Twitter said to take the six points."

But Selterman says he was unsurprised by the results, adding that he hopes his students at least walk away from his course with a sense of mindfulness.

“I wish that students took from this the idea that their actions affect others and vice versa and, going forward, whenever they work in groups or whenever they interact with others in their community, that they carefully consider these things, these mechanisms and that they work together constructively with others,” Selterman says. “I would hope that any student who chose six points would, in the future, think twice about the selfish option and think about what’s best for the group and -- by extension -- what’s best for them.”



Jaleesa Jones is a summer 2015 USA TODAY College intern and a recent alumna of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.