Daily Joke: Psychologist Tests 2 Boys

Arthur was a distinguished psychologist who had studied human behavior and psyche for several years. He was a renowned researcher and professional in his field, and always enjoyed conducting new experiments and surveys.

He was particularly interested in studying human thought processes and feelings and how together, they could influence one's emotional intelligence. For this purpose, he pulled all-nighters and worked diligently to devise a test that could prove or reject his hypothesis.

After several weeks of hard work, Arthur decided to perform a test on two young subjects. He believed that having adults as his subjects might hinder the test results, and so it was best to conduct it with children.

The main purpose behind carrying out the test was to determine who out of the two young participants was a genius. So Arthur found two five-year-old boys, named Johnny and Billy. Instead of conducting the test in one go, he sat with each one of them separately.

First, he welcomed Johnny with a big smile and made him an offer, asking him to choose one option.

"Hello, Johnny. Now listen to me very carefully," began Arthur. “I will give you one Almond Joy right now and you can eat it and be done with this. Or two Almond Joys in five minutes, if you can sit here patiently and wait.”

Johhny reflected on the offer for a brief moment, seemed somewhat confused, and eventually replied, "Hi, I guess I'll take it now, thanks."

Soon afterward, Arthur offered the same deal to Billy, who took a minute or two to fully consider both options, concentrating on the pros and cons of choosing one and declining the other. Eventually, he took a deep breath and answered,

"I'll take two."

Consequently, Arthur bid farewell to both boys, giving them their desired number of Almond Joys. He came to the conclusion that obviously, Billy was a genius because he preferred waiting patiently because he knew it would double his reward.

On the contrary, Johnny acted with impatience and hurry, which only earned him one chocolate. The psychologist then authored a paper on his study and test results and received sheer praise and appreciation. However, he had only been able to conclude the obvious.

Arthur missed out on a very critical element - asking the subjects the reason behind their choice. If he did that, he would have discovered that Billy never heard the question, and only opted for two because it was the larger number.

As for Johnny, his mother had told him that the moment he returned home from all the "Doctor Business," she would take him to eat his favorite ice cream, so he had absolutely no reason to wait another five minutes for the bigger reward.

So even though the psychologist was praised for his study, he failed to see the bigger picture!

If this joke sounded relatable to you, maybe you'll like this one about a man who suffered from a sleeping problem and went to see a psychologist. However, he was charging too much so he decided to remedy the situation himself.

Source: SureDo