Naive play and the process of choice in guessing games

Agranov, Marina; Caplin, Andrew; Tergiman, Chloe

doi:10.1007/s40881-015-0003-5

Cited by 82 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…This line of inquiry has investigated topics ranging from the e¤ects of sleep on strategic behavior McElroy, 2010, 2012), to optimal search patterns (Sanjurjo, 2012a(Sanjurjo, , 2012b, to neurological studies of the brain during choice (Coricelli and Nagel, 2009), to novel elicitation methods designed to measure the reasoning of subjects (Agranov, Caplin, and Tergiman, 2013;Burchardi and Penczynski, 2011;Chen et al, 2010;Crawford, 2008). In particular, there is a growing literature which investigates the relationship between measured cognitive ability and economic preferences 7 and the relationship between measured cognitive ability and behavior in games.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive load and strategic sophistication

Allred

Duffy

Smith

2016

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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We study the relationship between the cognitive load manipulation and strategic sophistication. The cognitive load manipulation is designed to reduce the subject's cognitive resources which are available for deliberation on a choice. In our experiment, subjects are placed under a large cognitive load (given a di¢ cult number to remember) or a low cognitive load (given a number which is not di¢ cult to remember). Subsequently, the subjects play a one-shot game then they are asked to recall the number. This procedure is repeated for various games, where a new number is given for each game. We …nd a nuanced and nonmonotonic relationship between cognitive load and strategic sophistication. This relationship is consistent with two e¤ects. First, subjects under a high cognitive load tend to exhibit behavior consistent with the reduced ability to compute the optimal decision. Second, the cognitive load tends to a¤ect the subject's perception of their relative standing in the distribution of cognitive ability. The net result of these two e¤ects depends on the strategic setting. Our experiment provides indirect evidence on the literature which examines the relationship between measures of cognitive ability and strategic sophistication.

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Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive load and strategic sophistication

Allred

Duffy

Smith

2016

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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“…52. See De Sousa, Hallard, andTerracol 2012;Bhui and Camerer 2011;and Agranov, Caplin, Tergiman 2013. 53. One way our results could be affected for our university sample is if university subjects acted less strategically in our games because they were playing other students, but more strategically in the measured Level-K behavior is particularly stable when it is elicited through multiple games, 54 which is the method employed here.…”

Section: Measuring Behavioral Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decision Maker Preferences for International Legal Cooperation

Hafner-Burton¹,

LeVeck²,

Victor³

et al. 2014

Int Org

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Why do some decision makers prefer big multilateral agreements while others prefer cooperation in small clubs? Does enforcement encourage or deter institutional cooperation? We use experiments drawn from behavioral economics and cognitive psychology-along with a substantive survey focused on international tradeto illustrate how two behavioral traits (patience and strategic reasoning) of individuals who play key roles in negotiating and ratifying an international treaty shape their preferences for how treaties are designed and whether they are ratified. Patient subjects were more likely to prefer treaties with larger numbers of countries (and larger long-term benefits), as were subjects with the skill to anticipate how others will respond over multiple iterations of strategic games. The presence of an enforcement mechanism increased subjects' willingness to ratify treaties; however, strategic reasoning had double the effect of adding enforcement to a trade agreement: more strategic subjects were particularly likely to favor ratifying the agreement. We report these results for a sample of 509 university students and also show how similar patterns are revealed in a unique sample of ninety-two actual US policy elites. Under some conditions certain types of university student convenience samples can be useful for revealing elite-dominated policy preferences-different types of people in the same situation may prefer to approach decisionmaking tasks and reason through trade-offs in materially different ways.What determines preferences for international legal cooperation? What determines how decision makers prefer to design or whether they aspire to ratify international

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“…7 In one-shot beauty contest games, Burnham et al (2009) and Brañas-Garza et al (2012) find that subjects with higher cognitive ability choose lower numbers, while Agranov et al (2011) find that, when subjects are given time to think about their choices, higher cognitive ability subjects' choices fall more with thinking time. In related dominance-solvable and guessing games, working memory (Rydval et al, 2009) and depths of reasoning in the red hat puzzle (Bayer and Renou, 2012) correlate with behavior.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Ability, Character Skills, and Learning to Play Equilibrium: A Level-k Analysis

Gill¹,

Prowse

2014

SSRN Journal

120

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. In this paper we investigate how cognitive ability and character skills influence behavior, success and the evolution of play towards Nash equilibrium in repeated strategic interactions. We study behavior in a p-beauty contest experiment and find striking differences according to cognitive ability: more cognitively able subjects choose numbers closer to equilibrium, converge more frequently to equilibrium play and earn more even as behavior approaches the equilibrium prediction. To understand better how subjects with different cognitive abilities learn differently, we estimate a structural model of learning based on level-k reasoning. We find a systematic positive relationship between cognitive ability and levels; furthermore, the average level of more cognitively able subjects responds positively to the cognitive ability of their opponents, while the average level of less cognitively able subjects does not respond. Finally, we compare the influence of cognitive ability to that of character skills, and find that both cognition and personality affect behavior and learning. More agreeable and emotionally stable subjects perform better and learn faster, although the effect of cognitive ability on behavior is stronger than that of character skills.JEL Classification: C92, C73, D83

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Naive play and the process of choice in guessing games

Cited by 82 publications

References 11 publications

Cognitive load and strategic sophistication

Cognitive load and strategic sophistication

Decision Maker Preferences for International Legal Cooperation

Cognitive Ability, Character Skills, and Learning to Play Equilibrium: A Level-k Analysis

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