TITLE: Articles of Confederation Game
AUTHOR: Rob Bishop, Box Elder High School,
Brigham City, Ut.
GRADE LEVEL: 10-12
OVERVIEW: With apologies to the unknown sources of this
simulation, students will make simple choices involving
actual dollars. Their decisions will illustrate the
philosophical and practical problems that caused the failure
of the Articles of Confederation.
OBJECTIVES: Students will:
1. note the historical analogy of 13 participants and 13
states,
2. note the trade off between desire for common good and
individual good
3. note the voluntary nature of the Articles of
Confederation is based on a flawed assumption that all
will work for a common good
4. use the exercise as a lead into the discussion of
specific historical events which impacted US government
under the Articles of Confederation
ACTIVITIES AND PROCEDURES:
An Experiment for 13 Participants
General Instructions for Participants:
You are about to participate in an experiment designed to
give you insight into the nature of government. At the end
of the experiment you will receive a cash payment. The
amount of the payment will depend partly on a decision that
you make. It will also depend partly on the decisions made
by the other participants in your group. It will not,
however, depend on decisions made by participants in the
other groups.
During the experiment, you may not speak to any of the other
participants. After the experiment is over, you are
encouraged to discuss it with the other participants, but
you are not required to reveal your decision to anyone. You
can be completely confident that the supervisors will not
reveal your decision. You will receive your payment in
private. You can also be assured that the experiment
involves no deception of any kind.
Decisions and Payoffs
On a piece of paper, indicate a choice of either RED or
BLUE. The table below indicates how your choice and the
choices of others in your group determine your payoff. If
you study the table carefully you will notice that
participants choosing "red" are always paid $1.75 more than
those choosing "blue" no matter how many in the group choose
"red". You will also notice that the payoff for the group
as a whole drops as more participants choose "red". An
individual is better off choosing "red", but if everyone
chooses "red", then everyone is worse off than if everyone
chooses "blue".
# in group Payoff if you Combined Payoff
choosing choose for all
blue red blue red
13 0 $3.00 $0 $39.00
12 1 $2.75 $4.50 $37.50
11 2 $2.50 $4.25 $36.00
10 3 $2.25 $4.00 $34.50
9 4 $2.00 $3.75 $33.00
8 5 $1.75 $3.50 $31.50
7 6 $1.50 $3.25 $30.00
6 7 $1.25 $3.00 $28.50
5 8 $1.00 $2.75 $27.00
4 9 $ .75 $2.50 $25.50
3 10 $ .50 $2.25 $24.00
2 11 $ .25 $2.00 $22.50
1 12 $ .0 $1.75 $21.00
0 13 $ .0 $1.50 $19.50
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