“We will end this lecture with a little experiment” professor Jones said. He almost finished his two hour lecture on risk management. He taught the psychology students about the recent research in his field. But he also mentioned in his lectures that it is crucial that students not only read research articles, but are critical about them. He gave several examples of good research and research that “could have been done better, to say the least ” as he said.
“I would like to ask someone to the stage”. Several people raised their hand to volunteer, as his experiments where known to be quite harmless and fun to participate in. He seemed to ignore them this time. “Hello miss Chatty… Yes you with the blue shirt and long blond hair.” Miss Chatty quickly stopped her chat with the student next to her. “ You really seem to like being the centre of attention, don’t you? Why don’t you come to the stage, so people can really learn from you!” Miss Chatty turned a little red on her cheeks, but moved forward to the stage.
“I need two more volunteers, one male and one female.” Again hands were raised and this time a shy looking, quite small girl, who was properly dressed and a quite handsome guy with arms like steel cables were chosen to join Miss Chatty on the podium. They introduced themselves as Carmen and James. As the three of them were standing on the podium, professor Jones asked if they didn’t have a latex allergy or were afraid for a bang. Miss Chatty quickly responded that she luckily didn’t have a latex allergy, as if she would have had one, she would have been mother of a complete football team. When the students stopped laughing, professor Jones asked for a new volunteer as Carmen had excused herself. Nathalie, a tall girl wearing jeans and a easy fitting t-shirt moved onto the stage.
Professor Jones handed out a red balloon to Miss Chatty, how also seemed to listen to her real name Laura. “Please inflate this as big as possible, without popping it.” She brought the balloon to her mouth and blew a decent amount of air into it. After a few breaths the balloon reached its rated size. She added one more breath and the balloon formed a small neck. Laura took the balloon out of her mouth and pinched the neck between her fingers. “Do you think it could get bigger?” professor Jones asked. “Yes”, she replied. “But you told me not to burst it, so I want to stay on the safe side”. “Ok, good” professor Jones responded. “Nathalie and James, I would like to ask you to do the same as I asked Laura: inflate your balloon as big as possible. The one with the largest balloon will get a small reward from me.” To the students he continued: “So I expect their balloon should at least reach the size of Laura her balloon.”
James and Nathalie brought the balloons to their mouth and started inflating them. James had a much stronger breath and his balloon quickly reached the same size as Laura’s. Nathalie slowly inflating hers, but also her balloon became bigger. James’ balloon now started to get a neck. He continued inflating it, until the balloon suddenly burst with a loud bang. This made everyone on the podium jump expect Nathalie who kept inflating her balloon as if nothing happened. Her balloon now also started to get a neck and she also continued inflating it, to make it larger than the balloon Laura was still holding. She stopped blowing to see what the size was, compared to Laura’s. She decided to inflate it a bit more. The balloon got a large neck now. She took the balloon out of her mouth, looked at it in an admiring way. She moved towards Laura to compare the balloons sizes. Laura had just watched her and James inflating the balloons. She looked at her balloon and quickly realized that Nathalie’s balloon was way bigger. She took a deep breath, to make her balloon even bigger than Nathalie’s. She blew hard into the balloon, which exploded with a gigantic boom. Laura screamed and then started laughing.
Professor James now took the word again. He first thanked all three students for their help in the demonstration. “What you just watched is a shorter version of a famous experiment. Off course I used way less candidates than in the real experiment, but the results are similar.”
“James popped his balloon as I expected, he took the risk to win, but lost.”
“ I choose Carmen to participate in the contest, but she had an additional risk. While you were laughing about Laura’s remark about condoms she excused herself because she is afraid of loud noises. So she didn’t want to take this risk. It is a kind of risk management.”
“Laura inflated her balloon to a good size and only took the risk to inflate it further when Nathalie’s balloon became bigger than hers. She had nothing to lose, because her balloon was already smaller.”
“Nathalie had to take a certain risk by inflating the balloon bigger than the rated size, but as she took small breaths, she was able to control the size of the balloon and make it the biggest one. This forced Laura to pop hers. She didn’t take the risk on her own, but was forced to do so.”
“The famous experiment I am referring to, must have been discussed before in other lectures as well. It is the experiment where men and women inflate virtual balloons on a computer screen. The longer they inflate the balloon, the more money they get. But if the balloon pops, they get nothing. It turns out that men take way more risks and earn more money if they keep their balloons in one piece, but they also pop their balloons way more often than women. So on average, women earn more money in this experiment.”
“What I want you to do before next lecture, is to form groups of 4 or 5 persons, with at least 1 man and woman in each group. You need to read this paper about the balloon risk experiment and place your remarks on it. Furthermore I want every group of students to design their own experiment and test this. As all of you need enough volunteers to test their experiments, every group of students has to participate in the experiments of two other groups.”
The students started rumouring and forming groups.
In one of the most former rows of seats Ben just wondered what he witnessed. A beautiful woman who did b2p of a 12 inch balloon during a lecture. This must have been the best lecture ever for him. He noticed he had a huge boner and needed to go to the restroom quickly. As he moved towards the exit, Nathalie and 3 of her girlfriends noticed that he was still alone. “Hey you! We still need one boy in our group, do you mind joining us?”
“I would like to ask someone to the stage”. Several people raised their hand to volunteer, as his experiments where known to be quite harmless and fun to participate in. He seemed to ignore them this time. “Hello miss Chatty… Yes you with the blue shirt and long blond hair.” Miss Chatty quickly stopped her chat with the student next to her. “ You really seem to like being the centre of attention, don’t you? Why don’t you come to the stage, so people can really learn from you!” Miss Chatty turned a little red on her cheeks, but moved forward to the stage.
“I need two more volunteers, one male and one female.” Again hands were raised and this time a shy looking, quite small girl, who was properly dressed and a quite handsome guy with arms like steel cables were chosen to join Miss Chatty on the podium. They introduced themselves as Carmen and James. As the three of them were standing on the podium, professor Jones asked if they didn’t have a latex allergy or were afraid for a bang. Miss Chatty quickly responded that she luckily didn’t have a latex allergy, as if she would have had one, she would have been mother of a complete football team. When the students stopped laughing, professor Jones asked for a new volunteer as Carmen had excused herself. Nathalie, a tall girl wearing jeans and a easy fitting t-shirt moved onto the stage.
Professor Jones handed out a red balloon to Miss Chatty, how also seemed to listen to her real name Laura. “Please inflate this as big as possible, without popping it.” She brought the balloon to her mouth and blew a decent amount of air into it. After a few breaths the balloon reached its rated size. She added one more breath and the balloon formed a small neck. Laura took the balloon out of her mouth and pinched the neck between her fingers. “Do you think it could get bigger?” professor Jones asked. “Yes”, she replied. “But you told me not to burst it, so I want to stay on the safe side”. “Ok, good” professor Jones responded. “Nathalie and James, I would like to ask you to do the same as I asked Laura: inflate your balloon as big as possible. The one with the largest balloon will get a small reward from me.” To the students he continued: “So I expect their balloon should at least reach the size of Laura her balloon.”
James and Nathalie brought the balloons to their mouth and started inflating them. James had a much stronger breath and his balloon quickly reached the same size as Laura’s. Nathalie slowly inflating hers, but also her balloon became bigger. James’ balloon now started to get a neck. He continued inflating it, until the balloon suddenly burst with a loud bang. This made everyone on the podium jump expect Nathalie who kept inflating her balloon as if nothing happened. Her balloon now also started to get a neck and she also continued inflating it, to make it larger than the balloon Laura was still holding. She stopped blowing to see what the size was, compared to Laura’s. She decided to inflate it a bit more. The balloon got a large neck now. She took the balloon out of her mouth, looked at it in an admiring way. She moved towards Laura to compare the balloons sizes. Laura had just watched her and James inflating the balloons. She looked at her balloon and quickly realized that Nathalie’s balloon was way bigger. She took a deep breath, to make her balloon even bigger than Nathalie’s. She blew hard into the balloon, which exploded with a gigantic boom. Laura screamed and then started laughing.
Professor James now took the word again. He first thanked all three students for their help in the demonstration. “What you just watched is a shorter version of a famous experiment. Off course I used way less candidates than in the real experiment, but the results are similar.”
“James popped his balloon as I expected, he took the risk to win, but lost.”
“ I choose Carmen to participate in the contest, but she had an additional risk. While you were laughing about Laura’s remark about condoms she excused herself because she is afraid of loud noises. So she didn’t want to take this risk. It is a kind of risk management.”
“Laura inflated her balloon to a good size and only took the risk to inflate it further when Nathalie’s balloon became bigger than hers. She had nothing to lose, because her balloon was already smaller.”
“Nathalie had to take a certain risk by inflating the balloon bigger than the rated size, but as she took small breaths, she was able to control the size of the balloon and make it the biggest one. This forced Laura to pop hers. She didn’t take the risk on her own, but was forced to do so.”
“The famous experiment I am referring to, must have been discussed before in other lectures as well. It is the experiment where men and women inflate virtual balloons on a computer screen. The longer they inflate the balloon, the more money they get. But if the balloon pops, they get nothing. It turns out that men take way more risks and earn more money if they keep their balloons in one piece, but they also pop their balloons way more often than women. So on average, women earn more money in this experiment.”
“What I want you to do before next lecture, is to form groups of 4 or 5 persons, with at least 1 man and woman in each group. You need to read this paper about the balloon risk experiment and place your remarks on it. Furthermore I want every group of students to design their own experiment and test this. As all of you need enough volunteers to test their experiments, every group of students has to participate in the experiments of two other groups.”
The students started rumouring and forming groups.
In one of the most former rows of seats Ben just wondered what he witnessed. A beautiful woman who did b2p of a 12 inch balloon during a lecture. This must have been the best lecture ever for him. He noticed he had a huge boner and needed to go to the restroom quickly. As he moved towards the exit, Nathalie and 3 of her girlfriends noticed that he was still alone. “Hey you! We still need one boy in our group, do you mind joining us?”
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