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on Cognitive and Behavioural Economics |
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Issue of 2019‒10‒07
seven papers chosen by Marco Novarese Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale |
| By: | Tobol, Yossef (Jerusalem College of Technology (JTC)); Yaniv, Gideon (Ariel University) |
| Abstract: | The present paper reports the results of an experiment which studied the effects of parents' marital status (divorced or non-divorced) and psychological counseling (administered or not) on the honesty level of kindergarten children. Data on marital status and psychological counseling was anonymously provided by the kindergarten teachers and children's level of honesty was assessed by a flip-coin task which rewarded a self-reported favorable outcome. The experiment gave rise to two major results: first, children of divorced parents are less honest than children of non-divorced parents and second, psychological counseling helps improve honesty among children of divorced parents but fails to do so among children of non-divorced parents. No gender effect was found. |
| Keywords: | kindergarten children, dishonest behavior, flip coin task, psychological counseling |
| JEL: | C91 C92 K42 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12616&r=all |
| By: | Lian Xue (Wuhan University); Stefania Sitzia (University of East Anglia); Theodore L. Turocy (University of East Anglia) |
| Abstract: | We use experimental methods to test the effects of joint endowment on coordination success in tacit bargaining games. It has been well established that people use existing focal points to facilitate coordination and the power of such cues declines as payoff becomes increasingly unequal. We conducted an experiment in which two players jointly engaged in an interactive team building activity and together earned the stakes over which they bargain. In the team building exercise, two players jointly complete a shortest route task in a metaphor of a treasure hunt. After the two treasure hunters complete the journey, they independently decide how to divide their rewards using a tacit bargaining table. We find that when participants bargain over the fruits that result from joint activity, they are more likely to coordinate the focal point equilibrium. |
| Keywords: | Team building; Joint production; Group identity; Tacit bargaining; Focal point |
| JEL: | C72 C91 C92 |
| Date: | 2017–11–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uea:wcbess:17-12&r=all |
| By: | Ensthaler, Ludwig; Huck, Steffen; Leutgeb, Johannes |
| Abstract: | From the regulation of sports to lawmaking in parliament, in many situations one group of people ("agents") make decisions that affect the payoffs of others ("principals") who may offer action-contingent transfers in order to sway the agents' decisions. Prat and Rustichini (2003) characterize pure-strategy equilibria of such Games Played Through Agents. Specifically, they predict the equilibrium outcome in pure strategies to be efficient. We test the theory in a series of experimental treatments with human principals and computerized agents. The theory predicts remarkably well which actions and outcomes are implemented but subjects' transfer offers deviate systematically from equilibrium. We show how quantal response equilibrium accounts for the deviations and test its predictions out of sample. Our results show that quantal response equilibrium is particularly well suited for explaining behavior in such games. |
| Keywords: | games played through agents,experiment,quantal response equilibrium |
| JEL: | D44 C91 D72 D83 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbeoc:spii2016305r2&r=all |
| By: | Schmidt, Robert J.; Schwieren, Christiane; Sproten, Alec N. |
| Abstract: | Using coordination games, we study whether social norm perception differs between inexperienced and experienced participants in economic laboratory experiments. We find substantial differences between the two groups, both regarding injunctive and descriptive social norms in the context of participation in lab experiments. By contrast, social norm perception for the context of daily life does not differ between the two groups. We therefore conclude that learning through experience is more important than selection effects for understanding differences between the two groups. We also conduct exploratory analyses on the relation between lab and field norms and find that behaving unsocial in an experiment is considered substantially more appropriate than in daily life. This appears inconsistent with the hypothesis that social preferences measured in lab experiments are inflated and indicates a distinction between revealed social preferences as measured commonly and the elicitation of normatively appropriate behavior. |
| Keywords: | laboratory experiments; selection effects; learning; generalizability; methodology |
| Date: | 2019–09–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:awi:wpaper:0666&r=all |
| By: | Claes Ek; Margaret Samahita |
| Abstract: | Economic agents commonly use commitment devices to limit impulsive behavior in the interest of long-term goals. We provide evidence for excess demand for commitment in a laboratory experiment. Subjects are faced with a tedious productivity task and a tempting option to surf the internet. Subjects state their willingness-to-pay for a commitment device that removes the option to surf. The commitment device is then allocated with some probability, thus allowing us to observe the behavior of subjects who demand commitment but have to face temptation. We find that a significant share of the subjects overestimate their demand for commitment when compared to their material loss from facing the temptation. This is true even when we take into account the potential desire to avoid psychological costs from being tempted. Assuming risk aversion does not change our conclusion, though it suggests that pessimism in expected performance, rather than psychological cost, is the main driver of overcommitment. Our results suggest there is a need to reconsider the active promotion of commitment devices in situations where there is limited disutility from the tempting option. |
| Keywords: | Commitment device; Pessimism; Self-control |
| JEL: | C91 D03 D91 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201921&r=all |
| By: | Alexandre Kohlhas (Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University); Tobias Broer (Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | We document how professional forecasts overrespond to new information. We show that such overresponses are inconsistent with rational expectation formation with noisy information, common agency-based models of forecaster behavior, as well as several behavioral alternatives. In place, we propose a simple model of absolute and relative overconfidence, consistent with the stylized facts. Unlike rational forecasters, overconfident forecasters are overoptimistic about the precision of their private information and believe it to be superior to that held by others. We show how this causes forecasters to misinterpret the information content of market-generated public outcomes. Consequently, forecasters not only overrespond to private information but also to observed public news. We document how the latter is a pervasive feature of the forecast data. Last, we use the model to shed light on the importance of misperceptions about public information for expectation formation. |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed019:1171&r=all |
| By: | Giuseppe Attanasi; Ylenia Curci; Patrick Llerena; Giulia Urso |
| Abstract: | Charness and Grieco (2019) have experimentally shown that financial incentives have a positive impact on individual creativity, but only in the case of “close” creativity, i.e., when there are constraints to the creative task that a subject has to accomplish. In this paper, we build on the same “close” creativity assignments of Charness and Grieco (2019) and analyze with undergraduate students and with experts in creativity the interplay between monetary incentives and group cooperation in creative assignments. We introduce a novel model of intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation to group collaboration in creativity and run a theorydriven experiment to test our experimental hypotheses on the crowding out of intrinsic motivation due to extrinsic motivation to group creativity. We find more creativity in the group than in the individual treatment, apart when there are explicit monetary incentives to co-working (sharing ideas) in the creative assignment. Therefore, while Charness and Grieco (2019) show a positive interplay between monetary incentives (extrinsic individual motivation) and “close” creativity at the individual level, we provide evidence of a negative interplay between monetary incentives and “close” creativity at the group level (crowding out of intrinsic group motivation). Furthermore, and again in line with our model predictions, the latter effect is found more in the experimental sessions with experts in creativity than in those with undergraduate students. |
| Keywords: | Creativity, Group cooperation, Intrinsic Motivation, Extrinsic Motivation, Crowding out, Experiment. |
| JEL: | I23 O31 O32 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2019-37&r=all |