do alzheimer's patients remember social norms?

a working paper indicates that the neurodegeneration involved in the early stages of alzheimer's disease does not alter typical behaviors in a dictator game.

in the dictator game, the patient had a certain amount of money and is given the option to allot some to another player. most people give at least some money to the other participant. it's a simple game, and the researchers were trying to see whether alzheimer's induces loss of "social" memory along with other memory losses.

results show no significant difference between alzheimer's and normal subjects, indicating that they (paraphrasing the researchers) continue to be bound by the same learned social norms despite loss of other types of memory.

how interesting is this for economics? probably not very. however, it's a good illustration of how economic games are now being used for other purposes, for better or worse. that is, it's still an open debate whether the dictator game says anything about norms (e.g. list 2007). saying a subpopulation conforms to social norms based on this game misleads their audience, who likely knows nothing of the dictator game literature.

Labels: economics, misc. psych