Journal of Economic Psychology最新文献

In general gender differences have frequently been studied in experimental economics, but the findings remain inconclusive. In this study, we focus on gender differences in expectations and gender specific stereotypic mindsets in a dictator game, building on Blanckenburg, Tebbe, & Iseke (2023). We add to prior work by differentiating between stereotypical behavior and stereotypical expectations. Accordingly, we extended the classic dictator game by three steps in order to study whether recipients develop stereotypical beliefs regarding the dictator’s gender based on the amount of money the dictator has allocated to them. First, we asked recipients to estimate the amount. We then revealed the amount the dictator actually allocated to the recipient and finally, we asked the recipient to assess the dictator’s gender. In contrast to and building on previous results which show no gender differences regarding the amount the dictators allocate, we find evidence for stereotypical expectations of the recipients based on the amount the dictator allocates to them.

In recent years, there has been growing interest in capturing, manipulating, and analyzing the effects of decision-making processes that underlie economic choice. This editorial discusses these recent developments by contextualizing the six contributions to the special issue “Cognition and Economic Behavior” within the broader scope of the existing literature.

Loss aversion is widely regarded as the most robust and ubiquitous finding in behavioural economics. According to the loss aversion hypothesis, the subjective value of losses exceeds the subjective value of equivalent gains. One common assumption in the literature is that this asymmetry represents a fundamental and stable feature of people’s preferences. In cumulative prospect theory, loss aversion is captured by the lambda (λ) parameter, which controls the steepness of the value function for losses. Estimates of λ by Tversky and Kahneman (1992) found evidence for considerable overweighting of losses in risky choice (λ = 2.25). But others find very different levels of loss aversion, with some reporting weak loss aversion or even loss neutrality. In order to assess what is the average level of λ reported in the literature, we set out to conduct a meta-analysis of studies in which λ parameter of the cumulative prospect theory was estimated from individual choices between risky prospects. We draw three conclusions. First, surprisingly few studies have estimated λ by fitting the prospect theory to individual choices between mixed gambles, and there are only a few available datasets suitable to perform model fitting. Second, much of the data are of poor quality, making it impossible to obtain precise estimates of the prospect theory’s parameters. Third, using a random-effect meta-analysis upon the available data, we found a small λ of 1.31, 95 % CI [1.10, 1.53].

People tend to discount the value of future rewards as the delay to receiving them increases. This phenomenon, known as temporal discounting, may underlie many impulsive behaviors, such as drug abuse and overeating. Given the potential role of temporal discounting in maladaptive behaviors, many efforts have been made to find experimental manipulations that reduce temporal discounting. One class of manipulations that has held some promise involves recalling positive autobiographical memories prior to making intertemporal choices. Just as imagining positive future events has been shown to reduce temporal discounting, a few studies have shown that recalling positive past events reduces temporal discounting, especially if memory retrieval evokes positive affective states, such as gratitude and nostalgia. However, we failed to replicate these findings. Here we present an internal meta-analysis combining data from 14 studies (n = 758) that involved within-subjects positive memory recall-based manipulations. In each study, temporal discounting was assessed using a monetary intertemporal choice task. The average effect size was not significantly different from zero. This finding helps elucidate the neurocognitive mechanisms of temporal discounting; whereas engaging the episodic memory system to imagine future events might promote more patience, engaging the episodic memory system to imagine past events does not.

Not all lies are for self-benefit. Replicating the famous Erat and Gneezy (2012) “white lies” paradigm in a setting that resembles the remote workplace, we expand to explore shirking and beliefs about group behavior. Aggregate misreporting is highest when doing so benefits a salient charity; plausible lies are abundant but abate as workers inflate reports to implausible, maximal outcome white lies. Male workers misreport uniformly and more than females in the black lies control. When benefits go to a just cause, females misreport at least as much, if not more, than males. Shirking is widespread yet significantly less common when benefiting a just cause, as workers more readily complete the task but subsequently lie about the performance. Workers’ beliefs about group lying are correlated with their reporting, particularly in the white lies case.

Leveraging the unique context of New York City taxi rides, we estimate that passengers are more likely to tip a suggested amount when presented with an integer tip suggestion, which also corresponds with an increase in average tip rates. We show that these results are not driven by rounding heuristics and are consistent with integers acting as focal points instead of left-digit bias. Focusing on a 2012 rate fare change that increased the probability of integer tip suggestions by 700%, our estimates imply a transfer from riders to drivers of approximately 250,000 dollars in 2013.

The peer-to-peer lending and transfer of underutilized resources – the so-called Sharing Economy – make up for a sizeable and rapidly increasing portion of the economy. The digital platforms that enable it have the primary goal of promoting trust among users and providers. In an online experiment, we study how the platform’s revenue model (No-profit vs. For-profit) interacts with its communication strategy in shaping trust. In particular, we consider two communication strategies, one highlighting the trust dimension and the other highlighting the interaction’s profitability. We show how these strategies can affect trust differently for pure-sharing and market-oriented for-profit platforms. We observe that a communication strategy that evokes trust feelings, if sent by a for-profit platform, decreases trust in the interaction. This evidence suggests that leveraging a rhetoric of trust can backfire for profit-oriented platforms in terms of trust generation.

We experimentally investigated the relationship between participants’ reliance on algorithms, their familiarity with the task, and the performance level of the algorithm. We found that when participants were given the freedom to submit any number as their final forecast after observing the one produced by the algorithm (a condition found to mitigate algorithm aversion), the average degree of reliance on high and low performing algorithms did not significantly differ when there was no practice stage. Participants relied less on the algorithm when there was practice stage, regardless of its performance level. The reliance on the low performing algorithm was positive even when participants could infer that they outperformed the algorithm. Indeed, participants would have done better without relying on the low performing algorithm at all. Our results suggest that, at least in some domains, excessive reliance on algorithms, rather than algorithm aversion, should be a concern.

Decisions on whether to engage in a pro-social act can separate altruistic from non-altruistic individuals. We explore the role of the probability that the pro-social action has to be carried out after publicly deciding in favor of it. In such a signaling environment, a lower probability that the act has to be carried out cheapens the signal. We use a model to predict how this cheapness influences decision-making behavior and the updating of beliefs about the decision-maker’s level of altruism. In a laboratory experiment, we test the model’s predictions by varying the probability that the pro-social decision has to be carried out and the strength of image concerns. If the image concern is non-monetary, the experimental data reveals that, in line with the model’s predictions, the share of pro-social decisions increases in the case of cheaper signals. The prediction that the effect of the cheapness increases with image concerns cannot be confirmed by the data. Belief-updating is a crucial element of modeling pro-social decision-making in signaling environments, as it provides the trade-off between costs and image benefits. However, the experimental data does not show significant belief-updating differences depending on the cheapness of the signal after observing a pro-social decision.

We report results from a unique data set of real-life bargaining transactions collected from the market for livestock (sheep) before the Festival of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha) in Izmir, Turkey. This market is characterized by frequent and aggressive bargaining, which occurs in the form of sequential price offers. We record bargaining transactions as they occur, and collect detailed information on the bargaining environment, as well as on the characteristics of buyers and sellers. We also elicit each seller’s outside option by means of an incentive compatible mechanism and obtain a reported maximum willingness to pay from buyers. We particularly focus on aspects of the bargaining process, such as non-price communication. In different types of empirical analysis, results robustly indicate that the presence and content of communication matters, for the likelihood of a sale as well as concessions made. Specifically, buyer-side communication is associated with larger concessions from the seller and a higher probability of sale. The presence of a mediator during the negotiation is associated with a higher probability of sale as well, while it has no effect on prices. We also provide results on the relative importance of groups of variables for predicting bargaining outcomes, which can provide directions for further research in bargaining.