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on Cognitive and Behavioural Economics |
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Issue of 2025–01–13
four papers chosen by Marco Novarese, Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale |
| By: | Kvarven, Amanda; Strømland, Eirik; Torsvik, Gaute |
| Abstract: | This paper uses a randomized experiment on a representative sample from the Norwegian population (N = 1390) to test whether prosocial behavior is intuitive. We use time pressure to capture intuitive decision making and a dictator game to measure prosocial behavior. We also estimate and test for “population heterogeneity” in the effect size. First, we exogenously vary subject experience with economic games to test whether experience influences the treatment effect. Second, we leverage our data structure to conduct a "pseudo meta-analysis, " assessing effect size heterogeneity across several potential sources of heterogeneity. This helps us assess whether prior findings in the literature stem from false positives or genuine heterogeneity in effect sizes. Our results show no evidence that experience with economic experiments moderates the time pressure effect. Further, the estimated heterogeneity in effect sizes in the pseudo meta-analysis is negligible, we cannot reject the null hypothesis of a uniform p-value distribution, and our rejection rate aligns with the expected 5% from chance alone. These findings support the view that the apparent link between prosocial behavior and intuitive processing is likely due to false positives rather than heterogeneous treatment effects. |
| Date: | 2025–01–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:4kxsu |
| By: | Nobuyuki Hanaki; Yuta Takahashi |
| Abstract: | We present and conduct a novel experiment on a multi-period beauty contest game. Leveraging the new multi-period feature, we propose a new methodology to test the forward-lookingness of expectations and explore how expectations are formed in our dynamic environment. By studying how expectations are revised over time, we provide new evidence for forward-looking expectation formation. Moreover, we uncover a new effect of strategic environment: only when the game exhibits strategic complementarity do participants use extrapolation and expect increasingly higher prices in the future. This finding implies that the mode of expectation formation is endogenous to the economic environment of the participants. |
| Date: | 2023–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dpr:wpaper:1213rr |
| By: | Jeanne Hagenbach (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research, WZB - Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung); Charlotte Saucet (UP1 UFR02 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - École d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | We experimentally study how individuals read strategically transmitted information when they have preferences over what they will learn. Subjects play disclosure games in which Receivers should interpret messages skeptically. We vary whether the state that Senders communicate about is ego-relevant or neutral for Receivers, and whether skeptical beliefs are aligned or not with what Receivers prefer believing. Compared to neutral settings, skepticism is significantly lower when it is self-threatening, and not enhanced when it is self-serving. These results shed light on a new channel that individuals can use to protect their beliefs in communication situations: they exercise skepticism in a motivated way, that is, in a way that depends on the desirability of the conclusions that skeptical inferences lead to. We propose two behavioural models that can generate motivated skepticism. In one model, the Receiver freely manipulates his beliefs after having made skeptical inferences. In the other, the Receiver reasons about evidence in steps and the depth of his reasoning is motivated. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:hal-04821601 |
| By: | Yilong Xu (Utrecht University); Mikolaj Czajkowski (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences); Nick Hanley (University of Glasgow); Leonhard Lades (University of Stirling); Charles N. Noussair (University of Arizona); Steven Tucker (University of Waikato) |
| Abstract: | A large literature in behavioral science suggests that people’s emotional condition can have an impact on their choices. We consider how people’s emotions affect their stated preferences and willingness to pay for changes in environmental quality, focusing on the effects of incidental emotions. We use videos to induce emotional states and test the replicability of the results reported in Hanley et al. (2017). Additionally, we employ Face Reader software to verify whether the intended emotional states were successfully induced in our experimental treatments. We find that our treatments succeed in implementing the predicted emotional condition in terms of self-reported emotions, but had a variable effect on measured (estimated) emotional states. We replicate the key result from Hanley et al. (2017): induced emotional state has no significant effect on stated preference estimates or on willingness to pay for environmental quality changes. Moreover, we confirm that, irrespective of the treatment assignment or emotional state - be it self-reported or measured - we observe no significant effect of emotion on stated preferences. We conclude that stated preference estimates for environmental change are unaffected by changes in incidental emotions, and that preference estimates are robust to the emotional state of the responder. |
| Keywords: | behavioural economics, choice experiments, emotions, stated choice, experimental economics |
| JEL: | D01 D12 Q51 C91 D90 Q56 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2024-19 |