Going to do some armchair evolutionary psych here. The theory (which gets support from this experiment) is that as a social species (ie, we work together to solve problems) we have built in mechanisms to punish cheaters, and we will often engage in punishment even when that punishment comes at a personal cost to us. That's what happens in this case - when the person is offered only one dollar, they rarely take it in order to deny (punish) the "offender" for being too greedy, despite the monetary cost to themselves.

Again this is why I wish leftists would take the field more seriously - holding on to the blank slate means that the conservatives get to misinterpret the data in their own image. In this case I think it helps demonstrate that the level effort required to indoctrinate people into believing that CEO's deserve $100 million a year is even higher than believed.

you are the media you consume.