It got real busy again. It does appear that we are settling into a routine, but trying to catch up is proving to be impossible.
The routine for me has been something like the following. I'm awake by 7 and working shortly thereafter. I have been entering the data into an Excel spreadsheet that has a number of linked sheets. It takes about 2 hours per experiment because I am also using some of the data for future experiments. So, I need to reassemble envelopes, etc. for the hand-run version of this thing. Generating a complete set of forms and envelopes for the experiment takes another three to four hours. Today we assembled enough for three sessions, but two of us worked awfully hard. We usually have breakfast at 9. It is often an interesting experience, with the food ranging from liver (ughhh) to today's course of hot dogs and macaroni. It is barely edible, but comes with the hotel. We've been eating a main meal around 2 (although today we ate at 4). The restaurant serves fairly passable food. Some has been quite good - I had a nice chicken-part dish that had a sour cream sauce with plenty of dill and potatoes. The chicken chunks come complete with bones and other parts. Even so, it was hot and good. By 5 we take off. All of our experiments here have been at 6. We usually arrive at a place early and then sit around waiting for someone else to show up to let us in. Once in, it is a mad rush to set up the experiment. Sam is "box boy" and is in charge of setting up the 12-18 boxes (depending on how many subjects we might get). Sam has spent a lot of time playing gopher. His first chore was to scavenge for boxes. He did a fine job. People kept asking him why he wanted boxes and he said that he was an eccentric American who loved to collect boxes. I get all of the forms ready. Lillia gets things ready for the subjects (and often they will show up 45 minutes early). Donna wanders around and frets. I spend my time doing therapy (cutting paper sheets). The experiment usually lasts about 2 hours and we're gone by 8:30. We get back to the hotel, head out to a nearby grocery store and buy some snacks. We then head back to Donna's room and unwind for an hour or so. Then it is usually back to work - cutting strips of paper, cutting stickers for envelopes and other materials we will need for the next day. I usually try to read for half and hour, but rarely make it.
So, right now things are really under a crunch. I never left the hotel today until we went off to the experiment. It has been rather hectic. We have made arrangements with Polina to have a lot of the materials pre-cut, among other things. This will mean that assembling an experiment for Yakutia will take far less time. I am hoping that things get routinized fairly quickly so that I can have some time to go see things.
Yesterday's experiment went very well and so did today's. The problem with yesterday was that we were in a tiny library that we have used before. The library was crammed when we had 9 subjects. Yesterday we had 17 - I took some wonderful pictures of the gang crammed into the room we were using. I'm afraid that the data from this session are not going to be the best. People were on top of each other and I think very cooperative.
We did have a few characters in this session. One Babuska was a riot. At the end
when we are drawing chips for part of the risk measure she was cracking jokes throughout. Everyone in
the room was laughing away. She was an interesting character. In the dictator game, in which a subject
gets to decide how much to keep and how much to give to another person, she kept giving everything away.
When asked to judge what others would give to her, she thought they would give her everything. Yet
when it came to the trust and ultimatum games, she was very shrewd. In the end she did quite well.Today's experiment was much better. The room was larger and we had 17 subjects. They were less trusting. The interesting story again involved a Babuska. She was very poor and had previously survived on her pension and her son. Her son died a little while ago (time unspecified). Her "winnings" today were double of her monthly pension on which she lives. She was in tears thanking Donna. This place is really interesting. Every transaction takes an inordinate amount of time. Everyone has to be consulted about any decision and very few people want to take responsibility. Entrepreneurs could probably do well here. Where I have seen this the most is with the taxi drivers. We spent a while with one the other day and he was very interested in how different taxi systems work in the United States.
According to Donna the rise in taxis in Tatartstan is very recent - within the past year. Here there is
no registration and taxis are private cars run by the operator. Most have joined with one of several
companies that field calls and then allocate rides to drivers. Fot this they get a percentage. Our
cabbie was happy to pay it because there is very little hailing from the street (and public
transportation is dirt cheap by comparison - although extremely crowded). These guys seem to have figured
out many of the angles. It is strange that a lot of the remainder of the country has not caught on.Sheesh, I'm yawning. It is late, so it is time to head to bed. I hope to be able to keep this more up to date now that a routine is settling in.