SSL Rieskamp, Jörg; Otto, Philipp E
Journal of experimental psychology. General,
05/2006, Letnik:
135, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The assumption that people possess a repertoire of strategies to solve the inference problems they face has been raised repeatedly. However, a computational model specifying how people select ...strategies from their repertoire is still lacking. The proposed strategy selection learning (SSL) theory predicts a strategy selection process on the basis of reinforcement learning. The theory assumes that individuals develop subjective expectations for the strategies they have and select strategies proportional to their expectations, which are then updated on the basis of subsequent experience. The learning assumption was supported in 4 experimental studies. Participants substantially improved their inferences through feedback. In all 4 studies, the best-performing strategy from the participants' repertoires most accurately predicted the inferences after sufficient learning opportunities. When testing SSL against 3 models representing extensions of SSL and against an exemplar model assuming a memory-based inference process, the authors found that SSL predicted the inferences most accurately.
One of the best-researched anomalies in behavioral sciences is loss aversion, but with strong study variations and no systematic explanations thereof. The aim here was to introduce ...psychophysiological correlates for loss aversion to improve behavioral predictability. In an endowment experiment, a loss versus gain framing was implemented for a virtue versus a vice product. In addition to the classical price elicitation, an area of indifference and individual price reactions were examined, while emotional arousal as skin conductance levels were continuously measured. Furthermore, various heterogeneity measures for emotions and product experience evaluations were applied directly after the purchasing decision or as a more general personality measure at the end of the study. Results show fundamental regularities of product and frame on the price or the size of indifference. Physiologically measured emotional arousal further supports the dependence of loss aversion. Vice products and a loss frame increase emotional arousal and the consumer purchase price indifference. Reported emotions, aggregated as personality factors, can partially explain the observed heterogeneity in purchase price levels and price indifferences.
The flip side of power Bolle, Friedel; Otto, Philipp E
Public choice,
01/2022, Letnik:
190, Številka:
1-2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
In random voting, the committee chair, whose vote decides in the case of a draw, is more often decisive than ordinary voters. Therefore, in the power indices literature, the committee chair is said ...to be more powerful. Players with a veto right are even more powerful still. Similarly, the production of threshold public goods may involve "tie-breaking players" (with more effective contributions) and "veto players" (specialists or larger players) whose contributions are necessary. We pose the question of whether power is beneficial for an individual. Except in the equilibrium where no player contributes, veto players are disadvantaged while tie-breaking players can be advantaged. In experiments with otherwise symmetric players, about 80% of the veto players contribute, but tie-breaking players also contribute almost as frequently as veto players, and significantly more frequently than ordinary players. Even with three times the costs of ordinary players, veto players stick to their behavior, while tie-breaking players reduce their contributions below those of ordinary players. Overall, powerful players always are worse off than ordinary players; thus, power seems not to pay off herein.
The Monty Hall game is one of the most discussed decision problems, but where a convincing behavioral explanation of the systematic deviations from probability theory is still lacking. Most people ...not changing their initial choice, when this is beneficial under information updating, demands further explanation. Not only trust and the incentive of interestingly prolonging the game for the audience can explain this kind of behavior, but the strategic setting can be modeled more sophisticatedly. When aiming to increase the odds of winning, while Monty's incentives are unknown, then not to switch doors can be considered as the most secure strategy and avoids a sure loss when Monty's guiding aim is not to give away the prize. Understanding and modeling the Monty Hall game can be regarded as an ideal teaching example for fundamental statistic understandings.
When including outside pressure on voters as individual costs, sequential voting (as in roll call votes) is theoretically preferable to simultaneous voting (as in recorded ballots). Under complete ...information, sequential voting has a unique subgame perfect equilibrium with a simple equilibrium strategy guaranteeing true majority results. Simultaneous voting suffers from a plethora of equilibria, often contradicting true majorities. Experimental results, however, show severe deviations from the equilibrium strategy in sequential voting with not significantly more true majority results than in simultaneous voting. Social considerations under sequential voting—based on emotional reactions toward the behaviors of the previous players—seem to distort subgame perfect equilibria.
In this paper, we use a tax compliance game with a public good to investigate the impact of public disclosure on tax evasion behavior experimentally. Three different types of tax privacy are tested, ...ranging from complete privacy to full disclosure. We expect two different effects: first, a contagion effect, arising when an individual observes non-compliance of other individuals and therefore reduces her own tax compliance; second, a shame effect of increased tax compliance due to the anticipated shame of being declared a tax evader. Both these effects are supported by the experimental results. However, the shame effect reduces tax evasion only in the short run. The influence of shame diminishes over the course of the experiment with subjects observing the non-compliance of other participants. Thus, our results indicate that when the contagion and the shame effect are present the latter is not strong enough to override the former in the long run. Furthermore, disclosing tax information anonymously increases tax evasion compared to providing no information on tax evasion behavior. These observations are of particular importance for tax policy because public disclosure may lead to more evasion instead of less when supporting a crowding-out of the tax morale.
•Experimental investigation of self-serving biases.•Combining a distribution task with reported emotions.•Absolute income influences reported fairness positively.•Positive income differences to ...others of the group contradict self-serving biases.•Social norms strongly vary with the position, but are not necessarily self-serving.
In our experimental investigation powerful managers use their discretion power to their own advantage and admit that their behavior is unfair. This contradicts studies stressing self-serving biases. Self-serving biases are often identified by asking people what fairness standards apply in situations with alternative income distributions. Nevertheless, when the response to a question is connected with a distributional decision, only the reply, but not necessarily the fairness standard, is biased. Social preference models envisage decisions as a compromise between self-interest and social concerns (norms). A model-based estimation of social concerns, as provided by this paper, is capable of identifying different sorts of self-serving biases. Higher income triggers higher fairness scores, but there are no indications that a relatively higher income compared to the peers is generally perceived as fairer than a relatively lower income.
Ultimata bargaining experimentally investigates the responder behavior for multiple proposers, that is, the responder’s decision to accept or reject an offer conditional on another parallel offer. ...Responders’ strategies combine the two formally independent but parallel games as if inducing competition among proposers by more frequently rejecting an offer when it is the lower one of the two offers received simultaneously. Furthermore, proposers’ public offers strongly correlate, due to adapting over repetitions to the parallel offer or because of only slightly outbidding the other proposer’s offer if known before their own announcement. Social preferences of inequity aversion or of pure altruism for income distributions resulting from simultaneous ultimata cannot explain a positive dependency of own offers on other parallel offers, and
joint responsibility
is proposed as a reference-dependent social motive.
Acts of taking money away from others and acts of reverting this behavior are investigated in an experimental survey that includes attitudinal questions concerning power and responsibility. Decisions ...to “steal or not” and “revert stealing or not” were made either before, or after the attitudinal questions. All possible individual combinations between stealing and reverting the stealing from others are frequently observed. Answering questions concerning power and responsibility beforehand leads to less stealing. People who believe that power is important in private relations, have a higher tendency to steal money from unknown others, and people who believe that power is important in public relations more often revert the stealing from others. Perceived powerlessness seems to increase stealing as well as reverting of others’ stealing. Attitudes towards responsibility do not relate to these investigated behaviors. Individual values for social actions best describe the observed students’ behavioral variation in social norm compliance.
Role-dependent Social Preferences Bolle, Friedel; Otto, Philipp E.
Economica (London),
October 2016, Letnik:
83, Številka:
332
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Bargaining results emerge from the interplay of strategic options and social preferences. For every bargaining game, however, the advantage of a player having certain preferences in terms of ...negotiated equilibrium revenues might differ. We explore the hypothesis that preferences change according to the players' strength combination. Simple 1×1 bargaining experiments from the literature are discussed, and 2×2 as well as 2×3 assignment market experiments with possible renegotiations are investigated. The assumption that players adopt preferences for two to five roles, defined by strength combinations of the two bargainers, explains the experimental results better than individually constant preferences.
PDF
