Journal of Economic Psychology最新文献

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.

Assigning responsibility for a project’s success or failure is key to organizational performance, yet attribution fallacies often interfere. Our experimental study (N=339) shows team members mistakenly attribute too much influence to their leaders on task outcomes. Despite task outcomes being randomly determined by easy or hard difficulty rather than leadership, leaders received undue credit or blame. Leaders assessed their teams more negatively in difficult tasks, except for female leaders, who were more lenient in assessing both conditions than men. Leaders' self-assessments did not differ between experimental conditions, confirming their self-motivated evaluation; moreover completing an easy task boosted their confidence for harder challenges. Our study shows that attributional errors manifest differently in the evaluation of leaders and followers and demonstrates that success in simpler tasks can increase leaders' confidence, potentially leading to riskier behaviors.

The gender gap in competitiveness is argued to explain gender differences in later life outcomes, including career choices and the gender wage gap. In experimental settings, a prevalent explanation attributes this gap to males being more (over)confident than females (we call this the compositional channel). While our lab-in-the-field study using data from students in 53 classrooms ($N$ $>$ 1000) reproduces this finding, it also uncovers a second, potentially more impactful channel of confidence contributing to the gender gap in competitiveness (the preference channel). To disentangle the two channels, we propose a more precise measure of confidence based on whether the subjects’ believed performance rank exceeds, coincides with or falls short of their actual performance in a real-effort task. We label categories of this Guessed - Actual Performance (GAP) difference as overconfident, realistic or underconfident, respectively. Surprisingly, there is no gender difference in competitiveness within the over- and underconfident subgroups, while a significant gender gap exists among the realistic. So, even if both genders had the same level of confidence, a persistent gender gap in preference (or taste) for competition would remain in the realistic group. This finding is robust across all specifications, challenging previous theories about the overconfidence of men being the main driver of the relationship between confidence and the gender gap in competition.

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.

Quarantine has been implemented worldwide to mitigate the spread of infectious diseases such as COVID-19. Although recent literature has outlined the mental and psychological costs of quarantine, its ethical costs are not fully understood. In two online experiments conducted during an institutional quarantine event (481 participants), we find that institutional quarantine leads to more dishonest behavior, including lying about the outcome of a random-draw task and overreporting one’s performance in a real-effort task to gain financial benefits. By directly manipulating individuals’ perceived psychological ownership, we provide suggestive evidence that psychological ownership may be one mechanism underlying the relationship between institutional quarantine and dishonest behavior. A complementary experiment (226 participants) suggests that anxiety and frustration may also serve as explanatory factors for this effect. We then discuss the implications of our findings, which may inspire approaches to mitigate the negative effects of institutional quarantine on honesty.

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.

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.

Consumption choices depend on the feelings experienced in the period preceding a consumer's decisions. We confirm this hypothesis using a large sample of Italian consumers collected by ISTAT (the Italian National Statistics Institute) as part of the multi-purpose survey “Indagine multiscopo sulle famiglie: Aspetti della vita quotidiana” (n = 114,052). Specifically, positive feelings are associated with wine and beer consumption, while negative feelings relate to spirits consumption. The latter pattern is common among men and women, whereas the former is only applicable to male consumers. Additionally, older consumers drink more following a period of positive feelings, whereas younger consumers drink less. Our two-level modelling strategy confirms the mediating role of personal characteristics in explaining the relation between feelings and alcohol consumption.