Journal of Economic Psychology最新文献

Gender differences in decision making is a topic that has attracted much attention in the literature and the debate seems to be inconclusive. In a recent study, Bouchouicha et al. (2019) using data from an incentivised experiment with almost 3000 students and 30 different countries, estimate gender effects assuming four commonly employed definitions of loss aversion. Despite the fact that their analysis is based on the same data and the same functional forms and econometric setup, their results are inconclusive regarding the existence and the direction of gender effects for loss aversion. In this study, we investigate two extensions of their work in an effort to shed some light on the potential reasons behind this contradictory result. In particular, we explore whether: (1) a more flexible estimation method that allows for individual heterogeneity and generates more robust estimates in the presence of noise and; (2) a different utility function, can generate more robust inference regarding gender effects. We show that while a more flexible Hierarchical Bayesian estimation method is not sufficient to explain the contradictory results, an alternative utility function detects a uniform gender effect, with women being always more loss-averse, regardless the adopted definition of loss aversion.

The lost-letter technique (Milgram et al., 1965) has been used for almost 60 years to measure social attitudes and helping behavior in psychological, sociological, and economic research. We provide a meta-analysis of lost-letter experiments to summarize the evidence. We analyze 78 studies with an overall sample size of 53,504 letters from 18 countries on five continents. We find an average return rate of 50 percent across all countries. Our meta-analysis shows that the return rate is lower for political or deviant issues. Stamped letters are also more likely to be returned, but letters with money are not more likely to be returned. A high socio-economic environment increases the chances of the return. We conclude that in line with the lost-letter paradigm, the technique allows capturing citizens’ attitudes toward the issue communicated. However, citizens do not act selflessly but react differently depending on the type of incentives.

We use a lab experiment to explore whether gender composition and gender identity salience influence team coordination. Identity in the experiment is induced using gender-specific and neutral avatars. In contrast with many previous studies, we do not find the presence of in-group favoritism, irrespective of whether gender identity or random avatars define the group. In addition, behavior remains unchanged when the gender of the counterpart is revealed. However, females are found to cooperate significantly more when gender information is disclosed, implying an elevation in the salience of gender identity induces the females to choose based on social expectations. This research adds to the discourse on gender dynamics in decision-making and suggests that gender identity plays a role in economic choices, innovating traditional views on diversity in teamwork. Our research sheds light on the intricate dynamics of gender composition in team settings, particularly under conditions of risk and uncertainty. These findings have the potential to inform both organizational practices and public policy, thereby contributing to a more equitable and efficient labor market.

We investigate the validity of a double random incentive system where only a subset of subjects is paid for one of their choices. By focusing on individual decision-making under risk and ambiguity, we show that using either a standard random incentive system, where all subjects are paid, or a double random system, where only 10% of subjects are paid, yields similar preference elicitation results. These findings suggest that adopting a double random incentive system could significantly reduce experimental costs and logistic efforts, thereby facilitating the exploration of individual decision-making in larger-scale and higher-stakes experiments.

Cooperation is more likely upheld when individuals can choose their interaction partner. However, when individuals differ in their endowment or ability to cooperate, free partner choice can lead to segregation and increase inequality. To understand how decision-makers can decrease such inequality, we conducted an incentivized and preregistered experiment in which participants (n=500) differed in their endowment and cooperation productivity. First, we investigated how these individual differences impacted cooperation and inequality under free partner choice in a public goods game. Next, we calculated if and how decision-makers should restrict partner choice if their goal is to decrease inequality. Finally, we studied whether decision-makers actually did decrease inequality when asked to allocate endowment and productivity factors between individuals, and combine individuals into pairs of interaction partners for a two-player public goods game. Our results show that without interventions, free partner choice, indeed, leads to segregation and increases inequality. To mitigate such inequality, decision-makers should curb free partner choice and force individuals who were assigned different endowments and productivities to form pairs with each other. However, this comes at the cost of lower overall cooperation and earnings, showing that the restriction of partner choice results in an equality-efficiency trade-off. Participants who acted as third-parties were actually more likely to prioritize inequality reduction over efficiency maximization, by forcing individuals with unequal endowment and productivity levels to form pairs with each other. However, decision-makers who had a ‘stake in the game’ self-servingly navigated the equality-efficiency trade-off by preferring partner choice interventions that benefited themselves. These preferences were partly explained by norms on public good cooperation and redistribution, and participants’ social preferences. Results reveal potential conflicts on how to govern free partner choice stemming from diverging preferences ‘among unequals’.

Using a repeated public goods game, we experimentally examine how apologies support mutual cooperation in groups. In two treatments where participants can send either public or private apologies, contributions increase by 0.43 and 0.87 standard deviations respectively, compared to a control treatment. Examining the mechanisms, we find much consistency in the usage of apologies: participants apologise when contributing less than others and subsequently make amends by raising contributions. Recipients of apologies also believe that apologisers are more caring and will contribute more. While there are only minimal differences in the effects of sending and receiving individual apologies across the private and public treatments, we find that sincere apology usage by groups is strongly associated with higher group cooperation, especially in the public treatment.

Shafir, Diamond, and Tversky (1997, Money illusion, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112(2), 341–374) described the phenomenon of money illusion as the inclination to consider money without adequately taking into account the inflation factor, emphasizing nominal values rather than real ones. This study aims to replicate the four conditions outlined in the original research by Shafir and colleagues, adapted to the Brazilian context: problems that include different financial decision-making situations (regarding earnings, transactions, contracts) that might be affected by money illusion. This cross-sectional and pre-registered study evaluated the money illusion in a sample of 372 Brazilian participants and was conducted via mobile phone/computer. The results found were very similar to the original findings: depending on the terms used (real, nominal, or neutral framing), participants showed varying inclinations towards opting for economically advantageous opportunities. Based on these findings, it is plausible that the money illusion effect may exhibit cultural independence. This assertion is substantiated by the replication of the effect within a distinct cultural context from the original study. To reinforce the empirical basis of this assertion, future investigations should analyze these findings across diverse cultural settings.

The present study examines the effect of social distance on choice behavior through the lens of a probabilistic modeling framework. In an experiment, participants made incentive-compatible choices between lotteries in three different social distance conditions: self, friend, and stranger. We conduct a layered, within-subjects analysis that considers four properties of preferential choice. These properties vary in their granularity. At the coarsest level, we test whether choices are consistent with transitive underlying preferences. At a finer level of granularity, we evaluate whether each participant is best described as having fixed preferences with random errors or probabilistic preferences with error-free choices. In the latter case, we further distinguish three different bounds on response error rates. At the finest level, we identify the specific transitive preference ranking of the choice options that best describes a person’s choices. At each level of the analysis, we find that the stability between the self and friend conditions exceeds that between the self and stranger conditions. Stability increases with the coarseness of the analysis: Nearly all people are consistent with transitive preferences regardless of the social distance condition, but only for very few do we infer the same preference ranking in every social distance condition. Overall, while it matters whether one makes a choice on behalf of a friend versus for a stranger, the differences are most apparent when analyzing the data at a detailed level of granularity.