The Monty Hall Dilemma
Donald Granberg
Thad A. Brown
University ofMissouri
The Monty Hall Dilemma (MHD) uses two-stage decisions with
a host, guest, and a prize behind one of three doors. After the
guest makes a choice, the host reveals another door as inwrrect.
The dilemma is whether to stick with the initial hunch or switch
to the remaining alternative. The correct but counterintuitive
solution is to switch. In the first encounter, only 12% switch.
Across trials, switching increases to 55%. Altering the reward
structure affects switching. The symmetrical counterpart to the
MHD is the Roulette Dilemma in which it is correct to stick with
the initial choice. In the latter, switching begins low but does not
decrease across trials. People misapprehend probabilities in the
MHD, negl.ecting the knowl.edgeabl.e host cue. People would feel
morefrustrated and angry ifthey switched and lost. The MHD 's
relation to illusion of control, beliefperseverance, and the status
quo bias is discussed.
I'd rather fight than switch.
Advertising slogan for Tareyton cigarettes
For 28 years on U.S. television, Monty Hall confronted
guests with a dilemma of whether to stick with an initial
hunch or switch to another alternative. The show Let's
Make a Deal fascinated millions because of this dilemma
in which the stakes were at times very considerable.
Although the show's long run has now ended in the
United States, interest in it resurfaced recently after a
series of columns in Parade magazine by Marilyn vos
Savant (1990a, 1990b, 199la, 1991b). The response to
her columns was voluminous and, in some cases, vitriolic.
Subsequently, this seemingly simple dilemma com-
manded the attention of several authors in the American
Statistician (Bell, 1992; Klein, 1993; Morgan, Chaganty,
Dahiya, & Doviak, 199la, 199lb, 1991c; Rao, 1992; Sey-
mann, 1991; vos Savant, 199lc), the American Mathemati-
cal Monthly (Gillman, 1992), and Skeptical Inquirer
(Frazier, 1992; Posner, 1991), as well as a page-one story
in the New Yorlt Times (Tierney, 1991).
711
from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved.
On Monty Hall's TV show, the situation was compli-
cated by TV cameras, a live and vocal studio audience, a
large home audience, and monetary incentives designed
to make abandoning one's initial hunch more appeal-
ing. However, the dilemma itself can be reduced to a
basic two-stage decision process. The focus is on the
interaction of two people, the host and the contestant.
The host knows which of three doors has the keys to a
new car behind it and which two doors have goats. The
contestant indicates an initial guess, but that door is not
opened. Rather, the host shows that one of th~ unchosen
doors is incorrect. The contestant then gets to make a
final decision by sticking with the original hunch or
switching to the other unopened door. The Monty Hall
Dilemma (MHD) is whether in such a situation it is best
to stick with one's initial decision or switch to the only
remaining alternative. 1
The intuitive solution is that the probability of .33,
located with the alternative shown to be incorrect after
the initial decision, transfers in equal parts to the two
remaining alternatives, which would then each have a
probability of .50. If each remaining alternative has the
probability of .50, then inertia, commitment, or the
desire to avoid being incorrect after switching may pre-
vail. Thus the very human tendency may be to stick with
Authors' Note: We thank Peter Mueser, Greg Casey, Craig Anderson,
James Endersby, Paul Wallace, Douglas Grouws, Margie Gurwit,
Stephan Hatos, Monty Hall, Steven Wise, Ruma Falk, Shin'ichi
Ichikawa, Peter Frensch, Kathy Lyman, Karen McCurdy, Alan Strath-
man, John Tierney, Ed Brent, Ed Vaughan, John Galliher, Bruce
Biddle, Musa Ilu, Shawn Kelly, Carrol Whitehouse, Wilbrod Madzura,
Allyson Sipkin, Karmin Biere, Patricia Shanks, Kathy Craighead, and
Phoebe Rastorfer for their advice and assistance. We are especially
grateful to Michael Hess and Gregory Johnson, who wrote the com-
puter programs used in this research. Address correspondence to
Donald Granberg, Center for Research in Social Behavior, Hillcrest
Hall, 1507EastBroadway, UniversityofMissouri,Columbia,M065211.
PSPB, Vol. 21 No. 7,July 1995 711-723
© 1995 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
712 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGYBULLETIN
one's initial hunch, especially because there seems to be
no rational basis for switching.
Vos Savant (1990a) shocked many of her readers by
asserting that the contestant should switch, arguing that
the probability of winning by switching is two thirds,
whereas the chances of winning by sticking are only one
in three. Many readers were indignant or incensed and
wrote to point out her "error." Of the 10,000 letters
received by her on this topic, 90% maintained her solu-
tion was wrong, including 65% of the people writing
from universities. 2 In response, she published additional
columns in which she reaffirmed her original answer
(vos Savant, 199la, 199lb). 3
Although vos Savant brought this dilemma to the
public in an insightful and provocative manner, in fact,
it has been known and analyzed for more than 30 years
by various scholars. In two issues of Scientific American,
Martin Gardner ( l 959a, l 959b) described the "three
prisoner problem," which has a structure equivalent to
the MHD, and provided the correct solution. Mosteller
(1965) included the three prisoner problem as one of 50
challenging problems in probability. Ten years later,
Selvin (1975a, 1975b) provided a compelling, parsimo-
nious proof that the probability of winning by switching
is .67, and, therefore, the proper solution is to switch.
Selvin (1975a) included an elegant mathematical for-
mula, which he credited to D. L. Ferguson. This formula
provides a general basis for calculating the solution to
this problem with N doors and n incorrect alternatives
shown: (N-1)/[N(N- n-1)]. For problems in which
there is only one correct alternative (one car), Fer-
guson's formula uses the total number of doors and the
number of incorrect doors shown, and the answer is the
probability of winning by switching.4
It is now generally accepted that vos Savant's two-
thirds solution is correct. It can be proven by an analysis
of a decision tree or sample space (Mosteller, 1965),
Bayes's Theorem (Diaconis & Zabell, 1986; Ichikawa,
1989; Selvin, 1975a), or through computer simulation
(Shaughnessy & Dick, 1991). However, the superiority of
the always-switch strategy may only hold provided the
following reasonable assumptions are made:
a. The correct answer is assigned randomly with each
alternative having an equal chance of being correct.
b. The host knows the correct answer and the contestant's
initial guess.
c. The host uses that knowledge to deliberately show an
incorrect, unchosen alternative after the initial guess.
d. If the host has a choice between which of two incorrect
alternatives to show (i.e., when the contestant's initial
guess is correct), the choice is made randomly with
equal probability.
e. The host is committed to giving the contestant the
choice of whether to stick or switch.
f. The host never lies.
With two losing doors and one winning door, a knowl-
edgeabk host can always show one losing door, regardless
of which door is initially chosen. Thus, when the host
knowingly opens an incorrect, unchosen door, this gives
no additional information about the likelihood of the
initially chosen door being correct. So under these as-
sumptions, the probability of the initially chosen door
being correct remains unchanged at .33. The probability
that one of the unchosen doors contained the prize was
.67, and this also remains unchanged when the host
knowingly opens one of the unchosen doors to show that
it is a loser. In effect, the host is offering a choice between
the initially chosen door and the other two.
If the above assumptions are not made, the situation
becomes exceedingly complex (Falk, in press; Leamer,
1987; Shimojo & Ichikawa, 1989). For instance, if as-
sumption (e) is not made, and if it becomes known that
the host provides the option to shift only when the initial
guess is correct, then it would make no sense to ever
switch. Ifassumptions (b) and (c) concerning the knowl-
edge of the host are not made, and the host just happens
by chance to open an incorrect, unchosen alternative
after the contestant's initial guess, then the odds are even
for winning by switching or sticking. Thus taking into
account the knowledge of the host is crucial for under-
standing this dilemma.
For social psychologists, the important questions con-
cern what people experience, how people actually be-
have, and the process by which they reach a decision
when faced with a social dilemma. It is not uncommon
to have a rational standard and compare actual behavior
to that standard. For instance, in prisoner dilemma
experiments, the rational solution from the perspective
of self-interest is always to defect when the other person
is following a random or noncontingent strategy. Yet,
under such conditions, there is still a substantial direct
relationship between the level of cooperation by a con-
federate and the level of cooperation of the subject
(Chammah, 1969; Summers, Peirce, Olen, & Bara-
nowski, 1972).
It is well known that humans are not objective infor-
mation processors, and they are sometimes wrong in
their intuitions about statistics and probability.5 People
use a variety of cognitive heuristics when acting as intui-
tive statisticians, and these heuristics can be misleading
and produce erroneous judgments (Kahneman, Slovic,
& Tversky, 1982). People are especially prone to error
when faced with problems involving conditional proba-
bility (Bar-Hillel & Falk, 1982; Ichikawa & Takeichi, 1990;
Shaughnessy & Dick, 1991), and that is what is under
consideration in the MHD. Anecdotal evidence suggests
that people will tend to stick with their initial hunch in
the MHD when on objective grounds, they ought to
switch. Exactly why they would do this is not self-evident,
 Granberg, Brown I THE MON1YHALL DILEMMA
but it may comprise a basic psychological tendency with
considerable generality.
The following sections report evidence on how peo-
ple behave in the MHD. Our initial data are from a
one-trial word problem study. Then we report data on
how people choose in a multitrial MHD. These are
exploratory baseline studies, but we expected relatively
low levels of switching. Next, we report a second mul-
titrial experiment in which people were randomly as-
signed to either the MHD or its opposite, dubbed the
Russian Roulette Dilemma (RRD). Then we report evi-
dence from another word problem study in which the
knowledge of the host is varied and people make explicit
estimates of probability and give reasons for sticking or
switching. The final study presents evidence pertaining
to counterfactual thinking in ihe MHD.
STUDY 1: WORD PROBLEM
We began with the hypothesis that the advantage of
switching in the MHD is counterintuitive. Most people
see no advantage to switching and, therefore, are in-
clined to stick. Vos Savant (199la) reported, "Of the
letters from the general public, 92% are against my
answer [that switching yields a twc:rthirds chance of win-
ning]; and of the letters from universities, 65% are
against my answer. Overall, nine out of 10 readers [italics
added] completely disagree with my reply" (p. 12). Vos
Savant erred in using the word "readers" when she would
have been safer and technically correct if she had said
"letter writers" (cf. Converse, Clausen, & Miller, 1965).
As M. Glickman (personal communication with Marilyn
vos Savant, 1991) reasoned,
If a reader agrees with your solution, the chances the
reader will respond is small since there is no apparent
controversy. On the other hand, if a reader does not
agree with your solution, there will be a greater inclina-
tion to write in and express this sentiment. Therefore,
extrapolating from the responses you receive to the
population of readers is not justifiable.
We regarded it as an open question as to how repre-
sentative the responses of the letter writers were of the
readers or the population at large. Therefore, we in-
serted the MHD in a questionnaire administered to two
sections of an introductory sociology class at the Univer-
sity of Missouri (N =228). 6 The wording used was drawn
almost verbatim from Tierney (1991): 7
Monty Hall, a thoroughly honest game-show host, has
placed a new car behind one of three doors. There is a
goat behind each of the other doors. "First, you point
toward a door," he says. "Then I'll open one of the other
doors to reveal a goat. After I've shown you the goat, you
make your final choice, and you win whatever is behind
that door." You begin by pointing to door number 1.
713
Monty then shows you that door 3 has a goat. What would
your final choice be?
_ _Stick with door 1 _ _Switch to door 2
In this initial study, only 13% checked "Switch to door
2." This is a very significant departure from a 50-50 split,
X2 (1) = 120.46, p < .001, in the expected direction. This
confirms the hypothesis that switching in the MHD is
counterintuitive. Additional findings rule out some erst-
while explanations. The gender difference was not sig-
nifi.cant; 15% of the men and 12% of the women indicated
they would switch, X2 (1) = 0.12, p > .05. Second, the
switchers did not report higher grade point averages
than those who said they would stick; the average reported
GPA for the previous semester was 2.9 for each group.
Finally, correctly solving another well-known counter-
intuitive probability problem was not helpful in predict-
ing who would switch in the MHD. The other problem
was the conjunction problem used by Kahneman, Slavic,
and Tversky (1982, p. 496). Among Missouri under-
graduates, 86% got this conjunction problem wrong,
checking "Linda is a bank teller who is active in the
feminist movement"; coincidentally, this was the same
percentage as reported by Kahneman et al. (1982) for
Stanford undergraduates. Of the 31 people who got the
"Linda problem" correct, only 4 (13%) chose to switch
in the MHD, compared to 26 of the 195 people (also
13%) who got the ''Llnda problem" wrong.
This vignette research provides an initial indication
of how people think they would behave in the MHD and
confirms the counterintuitive nature of this problem.
Next, we devised an experimental situation to observe
people's behavior in the MHD when given an incentive
to get it right. The laboratory situation provided for
observations over numerous trials. Therefore, we can
test whether people who are initially inclined to stick
when they should switch learn the correct solution in-
ductively through repeated plays of this game.
STUDY 2: EXPERIMENTAL SIMULATION
Method
A total of 114 undergraduate students (56 men and
58 women) participated in an experiment on "decision-
making processes." Students were not required to partici-
pate, but they received points toward their course grade
for doing so. The experiment was conducted in a com-
puter lab with 40 terminals linked to a mainframe com-
puter. Up to 10 students could participate in each session.
The experimenter showed each subject how to oper-
ate the keyboard and called up a program named LU-
MAD (Let Us Make a Deal). The experimenter
explained that the instructions would be on the screen
and that the study was largely self-administering. Sub-
714 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
jects were told that they could ask questions of the
experimenter if things were not explained adequately.
After typing their name, sex, and course, subjects were
given these instructions:
In this study, you will be asked to make a number of
decisions. On each trial you will be shown 3 doors (1, 2,
and 3). Behind one of the doors is an ACE that is always
considered the "correct" answer, i.e., the winning an-
swer. Behind each of the other two doors is a JOKER that
is always considered the "incorrect" answer, i.e., the
losing answer. On each trial you will begin by guessing
which door has the ACE behind it. After you have made
your initial guess for a given trial, you will be told that
one of the other answers is NOT the correct one. You
will then make your final choice for that trial by indicat-
ing that you want to STICK with your initial guess or
SWITCH to the other remaining door. This same two-
step decision procedure will be used over a series of 50
trials. There is no limit to the number of trials on which
you can decide to stick or switch.
The instructions went on to say,
After each final decision, you will be shown whether your
answer for that trial was correct or incorrect Ifyou STICK
with your original answer and it is the ACE, you get 1
point. If you SWITCH to the other remaining answer and
it is the ACE, you will get 1 point If your answer turns out
to be a JOKER, you will get 0 points for that trial,
regardless of whether you decided to STICK or SWITCH.
The preceding instructions were for what we consid-
ered the baseline (Ix) condition. We anticipated rela-
tively little switching initially and were uncertain whether
switching would increase across trials. Therefore, we
used two conditions in which subjects were given an
added inducement to switch. The instructions for the 2x
and 4x conditions were identical to those in the preced-
ing paragraphs except that in these conditions, subjects
were told that if they decided to stick with their initial
answer and it was the ACE, they would get I point, but if
they switched and their answer was the ACE, they would
get 2 (or 4) points. Subjects were assigned randomly by
the computer to be in the Ix-baseline, 2x, or 4x condi-
tion but with a probability of .50 for the baseline condi-
tion and .25 for each of the other two conditions. This
was to ensure a larger number of people in our baseline
condition, which we considered more important.
In the last part of the instructions, subjects were told,
''Your goal should simply be to accumulate as many
points as possible during the 50 trials. This situation will
be repeated with several people. Of all the people who
participate in a given condition, the person who gets the
highest point total will get a reward of 25 dollars." Sub-
jects were then asked whether they wanted to see the
instructions again. If not, they were told that Trial I was
about to begin and were reminded that their goal was to
accumulate as many points as possible over the 50 trials
by guessing correctly which door has the ACE. Subjects
then proceeded through the 50 trials. After the 50 trials,
they made five judgments about whether the task was a
matter of luck or one that could be analyzed and con-
trolled, whether they had followed a consistent strategy,
whether they felt they were extremely lucky or not at all
lucky during the 50 trials, whether they thought the 50
trial decision-making series was fair or rigged, and, finally,
whether they disliked or enjoyed making the decisions
over the 50 trials. These postexperimental questions
used a I-9 rating scale. After the postexperimental ques-
tions had been completed, the experimenter sent the
data from that session to a central account, inquired
whether there had been any problems with the instruc-
tions, and thanked and dismissed the subjects. Subjects
were asked not to discuss the study with people who had
not yet participated.
Results
In the Ix-baseline condition (N = 68), 10% decided
to switch and 90% decided to stick with the initial guess
on Trial I. This result is strikingly similar to the data from
the word problem in Study I and to vos Savant's letter
writers. The percentage who decided to switch on Trial
I in the other two conditions was somewhat higher, 43%
in the 2x condition (N= 23) and 36% in the 4x condition
(N = 23). Thus people in the two experimental condi-
tions (2x and 4x) were significantly more likely to switch
than people in the baseline condition (p < .05). The
difference between the 2x and 4x conditions on Trial I
was not significant (p > .05).
What happens in Trial I reflects the initial propensity
of subjects on how to decide in this dilemma prior to the
possibility of learning inductively that they increase
their winning percentage by switching. 8 How people
decide across trials may very well reflect a learning
process. The trend across trials is shown in Figure 1.
These data were analyzed by a 3 x 5 mixed analysis of
variance with the three incentive conditions and five
blocks oflO trials each as the independent variables. The
number of switches (0-10) was the dependent variable.
The main effect of incentive was significant, F(2, 11 I) =
20.26, p < .001, as were the main effect of block, F( 4,
444) = 33.89, p< .OOI, and the interaction of incentive X
block, F(8, 444) = 3.20, P< .OI. In the baseline condition,
switching began at a low level, increased to just greater
than 50%, and then leveled off. In the 4x condition,
switching increased in each succeeding block. The sig-
nificant interaction effect implies that the trend across
trials was different in the three conditions. The regres-
sion slope was +.47, +.40, and+ 1.06 for conditions Ix, 2X,
and 4x, respectively, and the corresponding intercepts
were 3.37, 5.60, and 4.01.
 Granberg, Brown I THE MON1YHALL DILEMMA 715

comparable situation in which it is correct to stick. Would

10 they also stick when they should stick, or, more per-
versely, would they switch when they should stick? To
A examine this, we had to devise a situation in which it is
v 8
correct for a person always to stick rather than switch. In
E 2X
the MHD, with one car and two goats, it is well estab-

r•- - - - - - - - - - •- - - - - - - - - -•
#
6

1X
lished _that following an initial selection and the showing
of an mcorrect, unchosen alternative, a person should
abando~ the initi~ se!ection and switch to the remaining
alternatJ.ve. By switchmg, the probability of selecting the
c winning door increases from .33 to .67.
H
E 2 But what if there are two cars and only one goat? In
s this scenario, the contestant would choose among three
doors, two of which are winners and only one of which
is a loser. 9 After the initial selection, the host knowingl.y
2 3 4 5
shows one of the other doors to be a winner, and that
BLOCKS OF 10 TRIAl..S
door is then no longer available. As in the MHD, the
contestant in the Russian Roulette Dilemma (RRD) then
Figure I Average number of switches in five blocks of 10 trials in diree decides whether to stick with the initial choice or switch
conditions of the Monty Hall Dilemma, Study 2.
NOTE: In the ~x-~aseline cond!tion, subjects get 1 point for being to the remaining alternative. However, a major differ-
correct after switchmg, whereas m the 2x and 4x conditions, subjects ~nce is that in the MHD (with one car and two goats), it
get 2 .°.r 4 poin~, respectively, for being correct after switching. In all is correct to switch, but in the RRD (with one goat and
conditions, subjects get 1 pomt for being correct after sticking.
two cars), it is correct to stick with one's initial guess. In
the RRD, the probability of picking a door with a car on
On the final 10 trials, 55% of the decisions were
the initial guess is .67, and this probability does not
switches in the Ix condition, compared to 73% in the 2x
change when the host deliberately shows that one of the
condition and 88% in the 4x condition. The percentage
other doors has a car.
of subjects who met the strict criterion of always switch-
ing in Trials 4I-50 was 7% in the Ix condition, I7% in Method
the 2x condition, and 39% in the 4x condition.
The results of the postexperimental questionnaire, In. Study 2, we varied the incentive structure by in-
creasmg the value of winning by switching (the 2x and
summarized in Table l, give the subjects' perspective on
4x conditions). In Study 3, we repeated the 2x condition
how they approached and experienced the situation.
People in the 4x condition were significantly more likely in which double points are awarded for winning by
switching (2x-switch), but we also added a condition in
to say their approach to the problem was based on
which double points were awarded for winning by stick-
analysis and control than people in the baseline condi-
ing (2X-stick). Thus, the design for Study 3 was a 2 x 3
tion, who leaned more toward the luck or chance end of
factorial, with subjects playing 50 trials of MHD or RRD
the scale. Similarly, on the second item, subjects in the
under either the Ix-baseline, 2x-switch, or 2x-stick con-
4x condition were more likely to claim having used a
dition. A total of I 73 undergraduate subjects (I05
consistent strategy than subjects in the Ix-baseline con-
women and 68 men) were assigned randomly to the six
dition. On the last three items, the three conditions were
conditions but with the probability set at .25 for each of
not significantly different. People rated themselves on
the Ix conditions and .I25 for each of the remaining
average almost midway between extremely lucky and
four conditions-again because the baseline conditions
extremely unlucky (4.9). The overall average on the
were regarded as more important. The instructions and
fair-rigged scale was near the middle of the scale, al-
procedure were essentially the same as in Study 2, with
though slightly toward the fair end (4.4). Finally, the
appropriate modifications to produce the RRD and 2x-
subjects leaned toward the enjoyed rather than disliked
stick conditions new to Study 3.
end of the scale; the overall average rating was 6.0.
Results
STUDY3: MONTI HAIL AND
As in Study 2, very few of the subjects in the MHD-lx
RUSSIAN ROULETTE DILEMMAS
condition showed an initial propensity to switch on Trial
The tendency of people to stick when they should I (8%,N=39) when theyshouldhaveswitched.However,
switch was dramatically demonstrated in Studies 1 and 2. in the RRD-lx condition, 31 % (N= 45) switched on Trial
Our next question concerns what people would do in a 1; this is significantly more than the 8% in the MHD-lx
716 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGYBULLETIN

TABLE 1: Average Ratings on Five Postexperimental Questions in Two Monty Hall Dilemma Studies, Study 2 and 3

Qµestion
Experimental 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Condition Luck Ver.rus Control Consistent Strategy Unlucky Vmus Lucky Fair Versus Rigged Disliked Vmus Enjoyed N

Study2
Ix baseline 4.3. 5.4a 4.8. 4.7. 5.9. 68
2x 5.3b 6.2.b 5.4. 3.7. 6.3. 23
4x 5.7b 6.8b 4.7. 4.I. 6.I. 23
Study3
MHD-2x-stick 5.7. 5.7.b 4.5. 5.2. 5.9. 20
MHD-Ix 4.8. 5.8.b 4.5. 4.7.b 5.7. 39
MHD-2x-switch 5.5. 6.5. 4.2. 3.7b 7.2b 22
RRD-2X"\!itick 4.6. 5.9.b 5.2. 4.3.b 6.o. 2I
RRD-Ix 4.9. 5.7.b 4.7. 4.7.b 5.9. 45
RRD-2x-switch 4.4. 5.0b 5.o. 5.I. 5.5. 25

NOTE: A full description of the conditions in each experiment is given in the text. Each question used a I-9 rating scale; I indicated luck, not
consistent, unlucky, fair, and disliked. MHD =Monty Hall Dilemma; RRD =Russian Roulette Dilemma; Ix= I point for correctly sticking or correctly
switching; 2x = 2 points for correctly switching; 4x = 4 points for correctly switching; 2X"\!itick = 2 points for correctly sticking; 2x-switch = 2 points
for correctly switching. Within each study, reading down, averages with a subscript in common are not significantly different by a Duncan
multiple-range test.

condition, X2 (I) = 5.72, p < .05, but also a significant
departure from a 50-50 split, X2 (I) = 5.69, p< .05. These
data imply that in the RRD, people show an initial
propensity to stick when they should stick, and yet this
tendency is weaker than the propensity of subjects in the
MHD to stick when they should switch.
Overall, the data were analyzed with a mixed 2 x 3 x
5 analysis ofvariance with the game (MHD, RRD), incen-
tive (Ix, 2x-switch, 2x-stick), and block as independent
variables, and number of switches in each block of 10
trials as the dependent variable. The main effects of
game and incentive were both significant, F(I, I67) =
32.37, p < .001, and F(2, I67) = 28.50, p < .OOI, respec-
tively; but the interaction of game by incentive was not
significant. People tended to switch more in MHD than
in RRD and more in the 2x-switch than in the 2X-stick
condition, but the incentive manipulation had roughly
the same effect in the two games. These effects imply that
subjects are playing the games seriously, in a way that is
sensitive to structural and incentive conditions. The
trends across trials for the six conditions are shown in
Figure 2.
The main effect of block was significant, F( 4, 668) =
9.84, p < .OOI; but, more important, the interaction of
game by block was significant, F( 4, 668) = I3.50, p < .OOI.
This interaction can be seen in Figure 2 in that switching
appears to increase across trials in the MHD conditions,
but the trend lines are basically flat in the RRD condi-
tions. The regression slope for the MHD conditions
combined is +.5I, with a constant of 3.40. For the three
RRD conditions combined, the regression slope is -.10,
with a constant of 3.41. The remaining two-way and
three-way interaction effects were not significant.
It is evident that people respond differently to the
MHD and RRD games. They differed significantly on
Trial I, the trend across trials was different, and they also
were significantly different on the last block (Trials 4I-
50). On that last block of trials, people in the MHD-Ix
condition switched on 58% of the trials, compared to
26% switching in the RRD-Ix condition. The strict crite-
rion for complete mastery of the problem, switching on
all of the last IO trials in the MHD-Ix condition and
sticking on all of the last 10 trials in the RRD-Ix condi-
tion, was met by I3% of the MHD-Ix subjects and 20%
of the RRD-Ix subjects.
If we focus on the Ix conditions, the RRD subjects
were closer to their correct solution of sticking at both
the beginning and the end of the series than the MHD
subjects were to their correct solution of switching. Stated
differently, the RRD subjects were quite close to a correct
solution on the beginning trials but came no closer
through experience. The MHD subjects, on the other
hand, were not close to a correct solution on the opening
trials but came somewhat closer through experience.
In another sense, it is of interest to see what people
do in the MHD-2x-stick and the RRD-2x-switch condi-
tions. In these two conditions, the game and incentive
variables offset each other so as to produce a toss-up on
whether to switch or stay. In the MHD-2x-stick condition,
the game odds are 2:I in favor of switching, but because
people are paid double for winning by staying, the over-
all expected value in this condition is even for switching
or sticking. In the RRD-2x-switch condition, the game
odds are 2:I in favor of sticking, but because people are
paid double for winning by switching, the overall ex-
pected value in this condition is even for sticking or
 Granberg, Brown I THE MONTYHALL DILEMMA 717

outcome. That is, in the MHD-2x-switch condition, both

10 MONTY HAU DILEllUA the game and the incentive imply switch, whereas in the
RRD-2x-stick condition, both the game and the incentive
A
v 8 2l( imply stay.
E SWITCH
.0-----------0----------e----------C
# 8
,,,,,
,,,, ,,
D 1X
STUDY 4: THE KNOWLEDGEABLE HOST CUE
s
w ......D··············D··············D·············· One of the letter writers who disagreed with vos Savant's
I 4
....····•··· 2l( two-thirds solution to the MHD offered this metaphor:
T
c STICK "Picture a race with three horses, each having an equal
H chance of winning. If horse #3 drops dead 50 feet into
E 2
s the race, the chances for each of the remaining two
horses are no longer one in three but rather are now one
in two. "10 In such a situation, the letter writer argues, it
2 3 4 5 would make no sense to switch one's bet to horse num-
10 ber 2 if a bet had previously been placed on horse
RUSSIAN ROULETTE DILEMMA
number 1. The writer is correct in a limited sense, but
A the analogy is flawed by omission of a key feature of the
v 8
E MHD-namely, the knowledgeable host. An alternative
#
wording of the above analogy might be as follows: "Sup-
8 pose you have bet on horse number 1 in a three-horse
s race in which there is no favorite. After you have placed
w ----------<>----------e----------0-----------o 2X
I 4 SWITCH your bet, omniscient God who knows the horse destined
T
c ··············G·-············-Q··-··-······-·G·--·-·········a 1X to win and how you have bet tells you, 'It's not going to
H be horse number 3.' "Depending on God's other attri-
E 2J~------.....-~~_.,..--~~--~~-- 2X
butes, you should probably switch your bet to horse
S STICK
number 2 if you have the opportunity.
The letter writer's thinking is quite typical, and this
2 3 4 6 mode of cognition could hold the key to why people's
BLOCKS OF 10 lRIA1..S intuition about the MHD is, in most instances, incorrect.
Most people seem to ignore, or at least do not adequately
Figure 2 Average number of switches in five blocks of 10 trials 1Dlder
three incentive conditions in the Monty Hall Dilemma (up·
take into account, the knowledge of the host as a cue.
per) and the RU!lsian Roulette Dilemma (lower), Study 3. Study 4 sought to demonstrate this.
NOTE: In the Ix-baseline conditions, subjects get I point for being
correct whether by switching or sticking. In 2x-switch conditions, Method
subjects get double points for being correct after switching, and in
2x-stick conditions, subjects get double points for being correct after In a survey of 354 undergraduates (151 men and 203
sticking. women) in five sections of a beginning sociology course,
a word problem very similar to that in Study 1 was used.
switching. It is worth noting that in each of five blocks of A 2 x 2 factorial design was used; respondents received
each of these two conditions, the percentage of sticking one of four forms on a haphazard basis. The scenario
is always more than 50%. was written to describe one of two gaming situations, the
Finally, the same five postexperimental questions MHD or the RRD, and included information that de-
were used in Study 3 as in Study 2 (see Table 1). In the scribed a host who was knowledgeable (gnostic) or with-
lx conditions, there was no significant difference be- out knowledge (agnostic) concerning the location of the
tween the MHD and RRD subjects on any of the five correct answer and the initial selection. In addition to
scales. The only intriguing result was a significant inter- being asked whether they would stick or switch, subjects
action effect on the last two questions, F(2, 165) = 3.53, were asked to give the reasons for their choices and to
p < .05, and F(2, 165) = 5.08, p < .01, for Items 4 and 5, estimate the probability of winning at two points, after
respectively. In the MHD, people in the 2x-switch condi- their initial selection and after their final choice. 11
tion were most likely to say the game was fair and that
Results
they enjoyed playing it, whereas in the RRD, itwas people
in the 2x-stick condition who thought it was fair and liked The rational solution is to switch in the MHD-gnostic
it the most. The implication is that subjects enjoyed the condition and to stick in the RRD-gnostic condition. In
task more when it was stacked to provide a more clear the conditions with an agnostic host, it is a toss-up. Table 2
718 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGYBULLETIN
TABLE 2: Summary of Results From Word Problem Study 4
MHD-Gnostic
% switching 15
Average estimated probabilily after initial selection .37
Average estimated probabilily after final selection .53
N 88
NOTE: MHD = Monly Hall Dilemma; RRD = Russian Roulette Dilemma. The four experimental conditions were manipulated by instructions as
described in the text.
shows that the results are not close to this standard. In
the MHD-gnostic condition, 15% said switch, compared
to 10% in the MHD-agnostic condition. This difference
of five percentage points is not significant, x2 (1) = 1.05,
p > .05. In the RRD-gnostic condition, 16% said switch,
compared to only 4% in the RRD-agnostic condition.
This difference of 12 percentage points is significant,
x 2 (1) = 5.24, p < .05, but it is in the opposite direction of
rationality. The MHD-gnostic and the RRD-gnostic con-
ditions did not differ significantly in likelihood of switch-
ing, thus failing to replicate the result from Trial 1 in
Study 3. Overall, in terms of choosing to switch or stick,
the agnostic host produced less switching than the gnos-
tic host, but the effect of the type of game and the
interaction effect were not significant.
The estimates of the probability of being correct are
also shown in Table 2. The main effect of the type of
game was highly significant, F(l, 335) = 54.97, p < .001,
in the estimates of the probability of being correct after
the initial selection. Even so, it is surprising that the
estimated probability for the MHD conditions was close
to .33 (ave. = .36), but the average estimate for the RRD
conditions was not close to .67 (ave. = .48). This could
be due to some inadequacy in the wording of the RRD
questions, but it is not apparent. The other main effect
and the interaction effect on the first estimated proba-
bility were not significant. In estimates of the second
probability of being correct in the final decision, neither
of the main effects nor the interaction was significant.As
shown in Table 2, in all four conditions, these estimates
hovered near .50. In the MHD-gnostic condition, by far
the most common pattern was to give .33 and then .50
on the two estimates of probability, a pattern shown by
44% of the subjects in this condition. Finally, we checked
to see whether people who said switch gave different
estimates of the probabilities than people who said stick,
and it appears they did. For instance, in the MHD-gnostic
condition, the minority who said switch did not differ
significantly from the majority who said stick in their
estimates of the probability after the initial selection, but
in the estimates of the final probability, the switchers
gave significantly higher estimates (ave. =.61) than those
who decided to stick (ave.= .51), t(86) = 2.09, p< .05.
Condition
MHD-Agnostic RRD-Gnostic RRD-Agnostic
10 16 4
.35 .49 .47
.49 .48 .50
83 87 89
Overall, the results of this second word problem study
indicate that people do not adequately take into account
the knowledgeable host cue. This interpretation is rein-
forced by the comments made by these subjects. Com-
ments by subjects in the gnostic conditions are not
noticeably different from those of subjects in the agnos-
tic conditions, despite the fact that this manipulation has
a radical effect and fundamentally alters the structure of
the situation.
In commenting on their choices, a few subjects
showed evidence of counterfactual thinking. For in-
stance, one subject in the MHD-gnostic condition volun-
teered the thought, "I wouldn't want to pick the other
door because if I was wrong I would be more pissed off
than if I stayed with the 2nd door and lost." Another
subject in the MHD-agnostic condition asserted, "Never
change an answer because if you do and you get it wrong
it is a much worse feeling." Two subjects in the RRD-
agnostic condition reasoned similarly, '1t was my first
instinctive choice and if I was wrong, oh well. But if I
switched and was wrong it would be that much worse"; "I
would really regret it ifI switched and lost. It's best to stay
with your first choice." Many subjects in all four condi-
tions indicated their impression that the probability is
.50 on the final choice, and they subscribed in one way
or another to the idea that one's first thought is generally
correct. In a later part of this survey, subjects were asked
to estimate the percentage of times when they changed
their answers on multiple-choice tests that the change
was from a right to a wrong answer, from a wrong to a
right answer, and from a wrong to a wrong answer. The
average estimate of changing from right to wrong
(41.2%) was significantly larger than the average esti-
mate of changing from wrong to right (34.9%), t(344) =
3.96, p < .001. This is despite evidence from research on
testing that indicates that changes from wrong to right
on multiple-choice tests outnumber changes from right
to wrong by a ratio of more than 2:1 (Geiger, 1991;
Mathews, 1929) .12
Three subjects actually made reference to the col-
umns in Parade magazine in their comments-although
it is evident this was not always helpful. One subject in
the RRD-gnostic condition checked switch and wrote,
 Granberg, Brown I THE MONTY HALL DILEMMA
"My chances are better-I don't know why but I read it
in Parade magazine-that genius answered it. There was
a big debate over it." Another subject in the same condi-
tion checked stick and commented, "Marilyn vos Savant
asked this question once. I hope that I got it right." (He
did.) A subject in the MHD-agnostic condition wrote, "I
remember this from reading Marilyn vos Savant, but I
can't remember what she said. I stick with #2 because I
always go with my first choice (as on tests)." The expla-
nations given by some subjects were of interest, but most
were very brief, for example, "Door 2 has a 50-50
chance-why change?" and "I would stick with my in-
stincts." The brevity of their answers could be traced to
this study being administered en masse. An alternative
for future research would be to ask each subject to "think
aloud" during the 50 trial experiments. This could give
richer evidence on how people think about the MHD
(Qin & Simon, 1990).
SfUDY 5: COUNTERFACTUAL
THINKING IN THE MHD
It appeared from the comments volunteered by some
subjects in Study 4 that they thought there would be
more negative affect associated with losing after switch-
ing than with losing after sticking. People who switch and
are then incorrect may feel especially badly because they
had the winning alternative correctly identified but then
switched away from it and, in essence, let it go. People
who stick and are incorrect at least know that they never
had the correct answer in their grasp. The purpose of
Study 5 was to provide more systematic evidence of
counterfactual thinking about the MHD.
Students in two undergraduate classes completed a
questionnaire that contained a description of the MHD
similar to that used in Studies 1 and 4. In this study,
however, instead of asking people what they would
choose, they were randomly assigned to a scenario in
which they decided to stick and lost (N = 56) or one in
which they decided to switch and lost (N = 55). The
wording in the former, following the standard descrip-
tion of the MHD, was as follows: "You begin by pointing
to door number 2. The host then shows you that door 1
has a goat. You decide to stick with door 2 rather than
switching to door 3. The host then shows you that door
2 has a goat and door 3 has the new car. Thus, you DO
NOT WIN the new car." The wording for the switch and
lose subjects was the same for sentences 1, 2, and 5. The
third and fourth sentences were as follows: "You decide
to switch to door 3 rather than sticking with door 2. The
host then shows you that door 3 has a goat and door 2
has the new car." Subjects were then asked, "How do you
think you would feel at that point?" They then made a
series of ratings by putting a check mark somewhere on
719
lines to indicate how they thought they would feel. Only
the ends of the lines were labeled, for example, as "Not
at all surprised" and "Completely surprised."
Each rating was coded 0-24. The average ratings on
eight scales are given for the two conditions in Table 3.
On two of the scales the difference between the two
conditions was statistically significant. People in the
switch-and-lose condition thought they would feel more
frustrated and angry than people in the stick-and-lose
condition. Subjects in the former condition also thought
they would be feeling less happy and fortunate and more
disappointed and upset, but the differences on these
scales were not statistically significant. These data pro-
vide support for the counterfactual interpretation of why
people are reluctant to switch in the MHD.
DISCUSSION
A rational decision maker in the MHD always
switches. In such two-stage decision situations, selecting
the nonrevealed complement of the initial choice is
always the best strategy to win-provided the assump-
tions stated earlier in this article are made. Indications
are that such rational action is not widely understood,
followed in practice, or easy to learn inductively. If our
results have external validity, the implication is that in
two-stage decisions, the human brain is not well
equipped to process conditional information. Humans
may be wired to choose conservatively to stick with a
tentative selection, even when there is no rational basis
for making that selection, and when it would be perfectly
rational to switch to another alternative. Of course, com-
parative and developmental data on this matter will be
of considerable interest as they become available.
Why do people stick in the MHD when they ought to
switch? A simple and direct answer is that they misappre-
hend the probabilities of winning by switching and stick-
ing. It can be assumed that if people understood that the
true probabilities for winning were .67 by switching and
.33 by sticking, they would probably switch consistently.
This begs the question of why people misapprehend the
probabilities. Our answer is that people ignore, or fail to
take into account adequately, the crucial cue of the
knowledgeable host. The third question is, Why do peo-
ple stick if they incorrectly assess the probabilities of
winning by switching or sticking at .50? That is, even if
the true probability ofwinning by sticking were .50, there
would be no rational basis for sticking. Here, the social
psychological mechanisms come into play.
A counterfactual approach suggests that in arriving at
their final decision in the MHD, people may use the
cognitive heuristic of mental simulation. That is, they
may implicitly ask themselves, "How will I feel ifl switch
and lose, switch and win, stick and lose, stick and win?"
720 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGYBULLETIN
TABLE 3: Average Ratings of How People Think They Would Feel
After They Stick and Lose or Switch and Lose in the Monty
Hall Dilemma, Study 5
Stick and Lose Switch and Lose
(N = 56) (N = 55)
Surprised 8.4 10.3 1.76
Excited 4.6 4.4 0.19
Happy 5.1 4.3 1.00
Frustrated 15.8 19.7 3.85**
Angry 12.5 15.6 2.51*
Disappointed 19.5 20.1 0.76
Upset 14.9 16.6 1.53
Fortunate 6.5 5.5 0.95
NOTE: Each of the eight dimensions was coded as a 0-24 scale. Higher
scores are coded with the adjectives given above. Only the endpoints
of the scale were defined verbally, for example, as "Not at allsurprised"
and "Completely surprised.•
*p < .05; **p < .001.
This heuristic may be used especially if people sense
incorrectly that the odds of winning in the final decision
of the MHD are even at 50-50, regardless of whether they
decide to switch or stick. Generally, affect is greater when
the situation involves action rather than inaction. In the
present context, switching would involve an action and
sticking inaction. If this principle applied equally to
favorable and unfavorable outcomes, then it would ex-
plain the preference to stick rather than switch only if
one assumed that people generally want to avoid reac-
tions high in affect. But perhaps the principle applies
more to negative than to positive outcomes, and people
may be trying to avoid the very negative affect associated
with losing after switching (Gleicher et al., 1990; Kahne-
man &Tversky, 1982;Landman, 1987). ''Damn,Ihadthe
right answer but changed it" is a common expression of
anguish familiar to teachers using multiple-choice tests.
Study 5 supported the counterfactual hypothesis that
people avoid switching in the MHD because they antici-
pate they would feel worse if they switched and lost than
if they decided to stick and then lost.
Another basis for hypothesizing a tendency to stick
with an initial hunch in the MHD is to view it as an
instance of the more general phenomenon of belief
perseverance (Anderson, Lepper, & Ross, 1980; Ross,
Lepper, & Hubbard, 1975; Slusher &Anderson, 1989).
Several studies have shown that once people have
formed a belief, it is difficult, although not impossible,
to disabuse them of it. Although there may be a connec-
tion, there are also some differences. Perseverance stud-
ies have dealt with beliefs about the world, for example,
whether the death penalty deters murder or whether
high-risk takers make good firefighters-beliefs that in-
volve the marshaling of evidence and reasoned argu-
ment. The MHD involves nothing more than a hunch or
a guess. Second, although the two are presumably re-
lated, the MHD involves perseverance in behavior rather
than in belief, especially if the tendency to stick with
one's initial hunch persists over a number of trials. A
tendency to stick in the MHD could also be a specific
manifestation of a more general status quo bias (Ritov &
Baron, 1992; Samuelson & Zeckhauser, 1988).
The illusion of control hypothesis (Langer, 1975)
implies that people might be inclined to stick. People
could experience an illusion of control when making the
initial guess, and this may make them reluctant to give
up that alternative later in the absence of a compelling
reason. The current research did not attempt to distin-
guish between these various concepts that can be used
to derive the hypothesis that people would stick when
they ought to switch. At least some of them are quite
amenable to future testing. For instance, the illusion of
control explanation implies that it is essential that the
person making the final decision be the same person
who made the initial selection. Switching ought to in-
crease, in this view, if the initial decision was made by
another person or by a computer.
The fourth question is, Why do people have such a
difficult time learning inductively to switch across 50
trials? To us, having worked with the computer program
used in these experiments, switching in the MHD is now
an obvious, almost trivial, strategy. One of us even wor-
ried that the experiment would be too apparent and that
midway through the sequence of trials, subjects would
surely see the solution and begin to switch with little
variance. Yet even for those with the greater incentives
to play a switching strategy, full insight into the correct
solution and purely rational behavior did not emerge.
People in the baseline condition in Studies 2 and 3
began at a very low level of switching and then gradually
increased their switching to a plateau between 50% and
60%. Conceivably, the incentive was not great enough to
concentrate the thinking of the subjects. The strong and
consistent .effect of varying the incentive structure in
Studies 2 and 3 contradicts that possibility. Some subjects
used paper and pencil in an attempt to discern a winning
pattern. Others lingered after the experiment to discuss
the correct strategy. Moreover, it is our impression that
the promise ofa $25 prize, later fulfilled, was an attractive
yet credible incentive. Or perhaps the trials did not go
on long enough to allow a correct inductive solution. In
fact, there is no reason to suspect that the leveling off in
the MHD reflected only a pause in the learning curve.
After viewing the leveling off at slightly more than 50%
switching in the MHD and the flat curve in the RRD, we
believe that allowing the experiment to continue to 100
or 1,000 trials would most likely not have altered our
results.
Another possibility is that subjects had a misplaced
focus. Told in advance there would be 50 trials, many
 Granberg, Brown I THE MONTYHALL DILEMMA
subjects seemed to be looking for nonrandom sequences
in the correct answer across trials rather than focusing
on the basic structure of the situation in a given trial. It
probably never occurred to most subjects that the cor-
rect solution might be to never switch or to always switch.
Most subjects used a mixed strategy, and that makes it
more difficult to discern the correct solution, despite the
2: 1 odds for winning by switching.
We do not have direct evidence on what people were
thinking during the 50 trial experiments. Many were no
doubt looking for a pattern but, meanwhile, incorrectly
subscribing to the view that the odds were even at 50-50
for winning by switching or sticking. The commonly
believed and intuitively reasonable strategy of flipping a
coin between the two remaining alternatives (the coin
flip, .50 hunch) does, in fact, yield a winning outcome
about half the time. Many subjects may have been satis-
fied with that level of winning or felt they could do no
better. This randomized strategy should not be confused
with still another common hunch that staying with the
initial choice in the MHD (the staying, .50 hunch) pro-
duces an equally likely chance to win. The staying, .50
hunch, in fact, wins only a third of the time in the MHD.
The solution to the RRD seems to be less counterin-
tuitive than the MHD. However, it is still true that most
subjects in the RRD conditions did not come close to
getting it completely correct. Some of them may have
had a correct sense of the odds but failed to draw the
correct inference on the behavioral decisions. That is,
people may think correctly that the odds of winning by
sticking are 2:1 in the RRD but incorrectly conclude that
they should lean toward sticking and stick on about two
thirds of the trials, a form of probability matching (An-
derson, 1991; van der Heiiden, 1989). In fact, the odds
of winning by sticking are 2: 1 in the RRD, and, therefore,
one should stick on every trial. By doing so, one can
expect to win on about 67% of the trials, whereas a
probability-matching strategy yields a win on roughly
56% of the trials.
Methodologically, our studies may provide a model
for studying rational and irrational tendencies in two-
stage decision making. Theoretically, they may bear rele-
vance to the psychological processes thought to attend
decision making. Festinger's (1964) theory of cognitive
dissonance held that the interesting psychological pro-
cesses of subjective distortion, selectivity, and dissonance
reduction occur only after a final and irrevocable deci-
sion has been made. It may be that this view is partially
incorrect in that there may be some intriguing processes
that occur after a preliminary and entirely revocable
decision has been made. Even when people have no
good reason for their initial selection, having acted on
it, they may become psychologically bound or commit-
ted to it (Kiesler, 1971) .
721
A further concern is whether our experimental results
have implications for decisions in everyday life. Our view
is that the two-stage decision-in which one makes a
tentative decision, gains additional information, and
then makes a final commitment-is very common if
indeed not the rule. People become engaged and later
marry. A general makes a preliminary decision to attack
at Normandy or Inchon and then continues to monitor
information about relevant alternatives before deciding
finally where to launch the attack. ;\;baseball manager
decides tentatively to remove the starting pitcher and
then receives more information about the status of avail-
able relievers. If we knew that people have an irrational
tendency to stick with an initial decision when they ought
to switch, this would obviously be relevant.
On the other hand, the MHD may be difficult for
people to solve precisely because it is so uniquely con-
trived. Aside from the game-show context, it is not easy
to come up with a situation in which people receive valid
information about unchosen alternatives from a know'fr
edgeabk host after a tentative decision but prior to a final
decision. Elsewhere, it has been argued that experiments
in social psychology should deliberately create situations
that would never occur under natural circumstances
(Henshel, 1980); that may have been done in the MHD.
Nonetheless, if the MHD in which one should switch
is considered in conjunction with the RRD in which one
should stick, we have a suitable framework for analyzing
the two-stage decision process. Much of the research on
the intention-behavior relationship does little more than
identify the switchers and the standpatters, and compare
them. The investigators often can say nothing about
whether it is rational to switch from intention to behav-
ior. Our data imply that people stick when they should
switch, and stick when they should stick. This may indeed
imply something important about how people make
decisions.
NOTES
1. It is clearly the two-stage feature of this decision that creates the
dilemma and the associated drama. Were it not for the two-stage
process, it would be a simple 3 x 3 constant sum game, with the host
and the contestant each choosing among three alternatives. Rapoport
and Chammah (1965) have pointed out that such constant sum games
are mathematically equivalent to zero-sum games, and this type is not
psychologically interesting. It is the second stage of the process, involv-
ing the decision to stick or switch, that makes it fascinating to observers
and agonizing for contestants.
2. Some writers seized on her "error" as an occasion to decry the
state of math education in the United States. Another critic com-
mented snidely, "Maybe women look at math pro bl ems differently than
men" (vos Savant 199la, p. 12). Mosteller (1965) noted the fascination
of people with this dilemma: "Of all the problems people write me
about, this one brings in the most letters" (p. 28).
3. All Paratk quotes reprinted with permission from Parade, copy-
right© 1991.
4. This formula implies that when only one door is correct, and one
or more incorrect doors are shown, it is always advantageous to switch.
722 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGYBULLETIN
The relative advantage of switching decreases as the number of doors
increases, but increases as the number of incorrect doors shown
increases. For instance, if only I incorrect door is shown, the relative
advantage of switching rather than sticking is .33 when there are 3
doors but only .01 if there are 10 doors. On the other hand, if all but
I of the incorrect doors are shown, the relative advantage of switching
when there are 5 doors is .60, but if there are 10 doors, the relative
advantage of switching increases to .80.
5. For instance, there is the birthday problem-estimating the
minimum number of people who must be in a room for the probability
to reach .50 that two or more ofthem will have the same birthday (Alder
& Roessler, 1968, p. 62). The correct answer of 23 is by no means
obvious. Intuition tells us it must be more than 23, and in one under-
graduate class, 88% (50 of57) gave guesses larger than 23. The average
guess was 184.
6. This is not to say, of course, that these students comprise a
random or representative sample of any population. Ideally, one might
use this dilemma in an omnibus survey of a large national sample. We
lacked the resources to do thaL The student sample largely eliminates
the problem of self-selection that made the representativeness of the
letter writers questionable.
7. Original quote copyright© 1991 by the New York Times Com-
pany. Paraphrase reprinted by permission.
8. When considering learning in this context, it is important to
distinguish between learning something about the specifics of how this
situation works to increase one's level of winning, and learning a
general principle that could be applied in analytically similar situations.
In this study, we address only the first type oflearning. Given the results
in Figure 1, it would be ofinterest to have a condition in which people
are in the Ix-baseline condition after playing the game in the 4x
condition for a number of trials.
9. This is analogous to the game ofRussian Roulette in which there
is typically only one losing chamber (with the bullet) and five winning
(empty) chambers.
10. B. H. Gilroy (personal communication with Marilyn vos Savant,
December 2, 1990). The letters sent to Marilyn vos Savant, in response
to her columns in Parade magazine on the MHD, were provided to the
authors for analysis. The authors wish to thank Marilyn vos Savant and
her assistant, Richard Romano, for their cooperation. A content analy-
sis of these 10 boxes ofletters is underway.
11. A copy of the questionnaire used in Study 4, giving the full
wording of the dilemma question in all four conditions, is available on
request from the first author.
12. This ratio is not fixed, and it is probably affected by the general
propensity to not change one's answer unless there seems to be some-
thing blatantly wrong with the alternative chosen initially. If the fre-
quency of switching answers increased, this ratio would presumably
become more even.·
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Received August 23, 1993
Revision receivedjanuary 8, 1994
Accepted January 15, 1994