Incorporating belief-dependent motivation in games

Battigalli, Pierpaolo; Corrao, Roberto; Dufwenberg, Martin

doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2019.04.009

Cited by 39 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 45 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This work expands our understanding of belief-based preferences to include preferences over second-order beliefs, i.e., the beliefs of others, that go beyond image motivation and strategic considerations (e.g., Battigalli et al, 2019). Most previous work on belief-based preferences has examined preferences for cognitive states about material outcomes affecting the self, such as whether one has an untreatable illness (Oster, Shoulson, & Dorsey, 2013;Ganguly & Tasoff, 2017) or whether one's stock portfolio has decreased in value (Karlsson, Loewenstein, & Seppi, 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Finally, the punisher might also care directly about the transgressor's beliefs, independent of his or her objective material welfare and suffering. The idea that people have preferences over their own and others' beliefs, regardless of the instrumental value of such beliefs, has many applications in economics (see, e.g., Bénabou & Tirole, 2016;Loewenstein & Molnar, 2018;Battigalli, Corrao, & Dufwenberg, 2019). Here, we focus on a specific category of beliefs: The transgressor's understanding of why they were punished.…”

Section: Three Motives Behind Punishmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

'It's Not About the Money. It's About Sending a Message!': Unpacking the Components of Revenge

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We examine whether belief-based preferences-caring about what transgressors believe-play a crucial role in punishment decisions: Do punishers want to make sure that transgressors understand why they are being punished, and is this desire to affect beliefs often prioritized over distributive and retributive preferences? We test whether punishers derive utility from three distinct sources: material outcomes (their own and the transgressor's payoff), affective states (the transgressor's suffering), and cognitive states (the transgressor's beliefs about the cause of that suffering). In a novel, preregistered experiment (N = 1,959) we demonstrate that consideration for transgressors' beliefs affects punishment decisions on its own, regardless of the considerations for material outcomes (distributional preferences) and affective states (retributive preferences). By contrast, we find very little evidence for pure retributive preferences (i.e., to merely inflict suffering on transgressors). We also show that people who would otherwise enact harsh punishments, are willing to punish less severely, if by doing so they can tell the transgressor why they are punishing them. Finally, we demonstrate that the preference for affecting transgressors' beliefs cannot be explained by deterrence motives (i.e., to make transgressors behave better in the future).

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Three Motives Behind Punishmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

'It's Not About the Money. It's About Sending a Message!': Unpacking the Components of Revenge

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In particular, we focus on one particular anticipatory emotion, esteem, and illustrate the interplay between players' information and the effect of emotions. 1 Different approaches to integrate individuals' preferences over emotions and the expression of emotions into game theory can be distinguished.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this approach, the expression of emotions stems from 1 Emotions can be categorized with regard to the time at which they are experienced. Expected or anticipatory emotions are experienced before the outcome occurs [1]. In Caplin and Leahy [2], for example, investors experienced anxiety before uncertainty about future states is resolved.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Team Production and Esteem: A Dual Selves Model with Belief-Dependent Preferences

Greiff¹

2019

Games

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We propose a dual selves model to integrate affective responses and belief-dependent emotions into game theory. We apply our model to team production and model a worker as being composed of a rational self, who chooses effort, and an emotional self, who expresses esteem. Similar to psychological game theory, utilities depend on beliefs, but only indirectly. More concretely, emotions affect utilities, and the expression of emotions depends on updated beliefs. Modeling affective responses as actions chosen by the emotional self allows us to apply standard game-theoretic solution concepts. The model reveals that with incomplete information about abilities, workers only choose high effort if esteem is expressed based on interpersonal comparisons and if the preference for esteem is a status preference.

show abstract