3 Cookies

3 cookies, 3 companions. To this day I’m not sure whether it was an experiment, or merely an exercise. I’ve been reading about behavioral lab experiments that economists use to draw conclusions about altruism, and the ‘3 cookie’ experience sounds a lot like one of them... although it took place well before that direction of economic thinking came into vogue....

I was 4 years old, and in summer school. If it had been some sort of behavioral experiment I would not have been surprised, even at that young age. My family, you see, lived in a university community (my father was working on his PhD in limnology) and every so often I was volunteered to be a subject of some study or other- the fruits of my cooperation destined to become a data point on some grad student’s thesis.

The odd thing about ‘3 cookie’ is that I remember it so well. It is like a movie clip in my memory that never fades. The only other thing I remember about that summer school class is the field trip to an airport, but the cookie thing stands out much more sharply than the aviation interlude...

This is how it happened: The teacher divided us into groups of four. Each group of four was seated around a small table, or, come to think of it, perhaps it was merely a desk. A little paper plate was placed in front of each child. The teacher explained that three of the four children in each group would be given a cookie, and that one of the ‘cookie children’ was to share his/her cookie with the child whose plate was empty...

It came to pass that two of my companions were white girls, and the third was a small brown boy. The girls sat on my right and on my left, and the little boy straight across.

The luck of the cookie draw smiled upon me and my female companions. The round, soft discs were molasses flavored, easy to break, and almost the same color as our cookie-less little boy. Seconds passed. Neither of the other two girls made a move to break their cookie... I began to feel uneasy, almost to the point of panic. Being painfully shy, the last thing I wanted to do was single myself out, to be the one who broke rank... but the teacher’s directions must be obeyed! They must... I broke the cookie. It was an uneven split. I kept the larger half, surrendering the smaller bit to my small friend across the table. I’m not that altruistic!
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