pymetrics Money Exchange Games: Trust, Fairness and Sharing

The pymetrics money exchange games are two short games about sharing money with a partner you never meet. Money Exchange 1 is based on the trust game and Money Exchange 2 on the dictator game, both classic tasks from behavioural economics. This guide covers what you see, the research behind each game, what they are thought to measure and why no amount is right.

pymetrics is owned by Harver, which completed the acquisition in August 2022 and says the games carried over into its gamified assessments.

What you see and do in Money Exchange 1

• Official (pymetrics' patent): you send money to a partner you do not know, the amount is multiplied on the way (tripled in the patent's version), and the partner returns none, some or all of it.
• Prep sites report: you hold $10 and your partner $0, and you send anything from $0 to $10. After the partner's return you rate how fair the exchange was, on a 1 to 10 scale according to some sites and 0 to 10 according to others. They describe a single exchange with a partner that is an algorithm, not another candidate.
• Not known: how the partner decides what to return, whether every version has one round, and the exact scale.

What you see and do in Money Exchange 2

• Official (pymetrics' patent): you and another participant start with equal amounts, then one of you receives extra money and decides how much of it, if any, to give away.
• Prep sites report: you each start with $5 and one of you gets an extra $5. In round 1 a partner holds the extra $5 and decides while you watch, and you rate the result. In round 2, with a new partner, you hold it and can give some or all, keep it, or take some of your partner's $5, then rate your own split. One prep site reconstructs the amounts in $0.50 steps.
• Not known: how the first partner decides, the real step size and the scale.

Prep sites usually report Money Exchange 1 as the first game and Money Exchange 2 as the fourth, but the order may vary.

The research behind the games

The trust game

Money Exchange 1 follows the trust game of Berg, Dickhaut and McCabe (1995). Participants in one room could send any part of a $10 show-up fee to an anonymous counterpart in another room. Whatever they sent was tripled, and the counterpart decided how much to send back. Sending is a bet on the other person, since it only pays off if they return more than you sent. The authors concluded that reciprocity is a basic part of human behaviour.

The dictator game, and the option to take

Money Exchange 2 follows the dictator game, in which one player decides how to split money and the other cannot respond. Kahneman, Knetsch and Thaler (1986) used an early version to study what people do when self-interest and an equal split pull apart.

The option to take echoes List (2007). When dictators could also take from the other player, many fewer gave anything, which suggests that giving depends partly on the options on offer. Even so, not everyone took as much as they could.

What the games are thought to measure

Harver lists fairness, generosity and risk tolerance among the nine trait areas its games cover, without saying which game feeds which. In research, the amount you send in Money Exchange 1 is usually read as trust: a willingness to take a risk on someone else. What you give, keep or take in Money Exchange 2 is read as generosity. Your fairness ratings show how you judge outcomes, yours and other people's.

pymetrics' patent and its co-authored 2021 paper describe a model that compares your game measures with people who do well in the role. Which measures come from these two games is not public.

Is there a right answer?

No. pymetrics' candidate FAQ says there is no right or wrong answer, and unlike Digits or Stop, these games have no correct response at all. The same choice can fit one role and not another. See pymetrics games answers for why answer lists cannot work, and pymetrics results and the trait report for how results come back.

How long it takes

pymetrics says each game takes 1 to 3 minutes, about 25 minutes for all 12, with no pausing mid-game. With one exchange and two short rounds reported, these are among the quickest.

A worked example

These numbers are for illustration only.

Money Exchange 1. You send $4 of your $10. Tripled, your partner receives $12 and sends back $5. You now have $11 and your partner has $7. You got back more than you sent, but your partner kept more than you, so you rate the exchange 6 out of 10.

Money Exchange 2. In round 1 your partner holds the extra $5, so they have $10 and you have $5. They give you $1.50, leaving you $6.50 and them $8.50, and you rate it 5. In round 2 you hold the extra $5 and give $2.50, so you both end with $7.50, and you rate your own split 9.

None of these choices is correct or incorrect. The games record the pattern, not a score.

Tips

• Decide as you would with real money and a stranger. There is no hidden amount to find.
• Read the numbers before you rate, including what your partner received after tripling.
• Use the whole scale if an exchange felt very fair or very unfair.
• Check the slider in Money Exchange 2 is on the give or take side you intend before you confirm.

Common mistakes

• Looking for a correct amount, or copying a strategy from a forum.
• Assuming you must mirror what the first partner did with you.
• Treating the partner as a candidate who will judge you; prep sites describe an algorithm.

Practising the format

Candidate Falcon's Money Exchange 1 practice has three untimed rounds with three simulated partners: you send $0 to $10 in $1 steps and rate each exchange from 0 to 10. The partners follow return rules we designed, revealed at the end, because pymetrics publishes none. In Money Exchange 2 practice you rate a simulated partner's split, then give, keep or take up to $5 in $0.50 steps and rate your own. Each ends with a neutral review of your choices.

These are independent games with original wording and art, not pymetrics' games, and the reviews are not pymetrics scores or trait reports. Playing needs a plan that includes Harver, which comes with the pymetrics-style games; see pricing. The free pymetrics guide covers all 12 games, including Balloons.

FAQs

Is there a right amount to send in the pymetrics money exchange game?

No. pymetrics says its games have no right or wrong answers and compares your choices with people who do well in the role, so send what you naturally would.

Is the partner in the money exchange games a real person?

Prep sites describe an algorithm rather than another player. pymetrics does not publish how the partner decides.

What is the difference between Money Exchange 1 and 2?

Money Exchange 1 is the trust game: what you send is tripled and the partner decides what comes back. Money Exchange 2 is the dictator game: whoever holds the extra money decides alone.

Can you take money from your partner in Money Exchange 2?

Prep sites report that in your round you can give, keep, or take from your partner's $5. pymetrics has not published the limits.

Does the fairness rating count?

pymetrics does not publish how it uses the ratings. Pick the number that matches how the exchange felt.

Sources

• pymetrics patent WO2015200880A1: the trust and dictator tasks.
• Wilson et al. (2021), Building and Auditing Fair Algorithms, with pymetrics co-authors.
• Harver: gamified assessments (read October 2026): trait areas.
• pymetrics candidate FAQ, employer-hosted copy (2018): no right or wrong answer, timing.
• Berg, J., Dickhaut, J. and McCabe, K. (1995). Trust, reciprocity, and social history. Games and Economic Behavior, 10(1), 122–142.
• Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J. L. and Thaler, R. H. (1986). Fairness and the assumptions of economics. Journal of Business, 59(4), S285–S300.
• List, J. A. (2007). On the interpretation of giving in dictator games. Journal of Political Economy, 115(3), 482–493.
• Prep sites (descriptions, not official): GraduatesFirst, Psychometric Success, MBB Prep and JobTestPrep.

Candidate Falcon is independent and not affiliated with pymetrics, Harver or any employer.