IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v71y2011i1p88-99.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Edgar Allan Poe's riddle: Framing effects in repeated matching pennies games

Author

Listed:
  • Eliaz, Kfir
  • Rubinstein, Ariel

Abstract

Framing effects have a significant influence on the finitely repeated matching pennies game. The combination of being labelled "a guesser," and having the objective of matching the opponent's action, appears to be advantageous. We find that being a player who aims to match the opponent's action is advantageous irrespective of whether the player moves first or second. We examine alternative explanations for our results and relate them to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter." We propose a behavioral model which generates the observed asymmetry in the players' performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Eliaz, Kfir & Rubinstein, Ariel, 2011. "Edgar Allan Poe's riddle: Framing effects in repeated matching pennies games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 88-99, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:71:y:2011:i:1:p:88-99
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899-8256(09)00132-8
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mookherjee Dilip & Sopher Barry, 1994. "Learning Behavior in an Experimental Matching Pennies Game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 62-91, July.
    2. Wooders, John & Shachat, Jason M., 2001. "On the Irrelevance of Risk Attitudes in Repeated Two-Outcome Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 342-363, February.
    3. Brown, James N & Rosenthal, Robert W, 1990. "Testing the Minimax Hypothesis: A Re-examination of O'Neill's Game Experiment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(5), pages 1065-1081, September.
    4. Cooper, Russell & Douglas V. DeJong & Robert Forsythe & Thomas W. Ross, 1993. "Forward Induction in the Battle-of-the-Sexes Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1303-1316, December.
    5. Ben-Porath Elchanan, 1993. "Repeated Games with Finite Automata," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 17-32, February.
    6. Roberto Weber & Colin Camerer & Marc Knez, 2004. "Timing and Virtual Observability in Ultimatum Bargaining and “Weak Link” Coordination Games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 7(1), pages 25-48, February.
    7. Ochs Jack, 1995. "Games with Unique, Mixed Strategy Equilibria: An Experimental Study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 202-217, July.
    8. Yaakov Kaarev & Werner G³th & Hartmut Kliemt, 2005. "How to Play Randomly without a Random Generator: The Case of Maximin Players," Homo Oeconomicus, Institute of SocioEconomics, vol. 22, pages 231-255.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pierre Courtois & Tarik Tazdaït, 2021. "Jacques Lacan and game theory: an early contribution to common knowledge reasoning," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(5), pages 844-869, September.
    2. Daniel Read, 2020. "The five games of Mr Edgar Allan Poe: A study of strategic thought in ‘The Purloined Letter’," Rationality and Society, , vol. 32(4), pages 369-401, November.
    3. Simeon Schudy & Verena Utikal, 2012. "The Influence of (Im)perfect Data Privacy on the Acquisition of Personal Health Data," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2012-12, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
    4. Penczynski, Stefan P., 2016. "Strategic thinking: The influence of the game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 72-84.
    5. Irenaeus Wolff, 2017. "Lucky Numbers in Simple Games," TWI Research Paper Series 107, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    6. Irenaeus Wolff, 2023. "Heuristic Centered-Belief Players," TWI Research Paper Series 128, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    7. Hatime KAMÝLÇELEBÝ & Emre ÜNAL, 2014. "Analyzing Framing Effecty by an Experiment among Students in Turkey," Journal of Economic and Social Thought, KSP Journals, vol. 1(1), pages 27-31, December.
    8. Kamilçelebi, Hatime & Ünal, Emre, 2014. "Analyzing Framing Effecty by an Experiment among Students in Turkey," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 1(1), pages 27-31..

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kfir Eliaz & Ariel Rubinstein, 2008. "Edgar Allen Poe's Riddle: Do Guessers Outperform Misleaders in a Repeated Matching Pennies Game?," Levine's Working Paper Archive 122247000000001909, David K. Levine.
    2. Emara, Noha & Owens, David & Smith, John & Wilmer, Lisa, 2017. "Serial correlation in National Football League play calling and its effects on outcomes," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 125-132.
    3. Duffy, Sean & Naddeo, JJ & Owens, David & Smith, John, 2016. "Cognitive load and mixed strategies: On brains and minimax," MPRA Paper 71878, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Okano, Yoshitaka, 2013. "Minimax play by teams," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 168-180.
    5. Ofer Azar & Michael Bar-Eli, 2011. "Do soccer players play the mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(25), pages 3591-3601.
    6. Emara, Noha & Owens, David & Smith, John & Wilmer, Lisa, 2014. "Minimax on the gridiron: Serial correlation and its effects on outcomes in the National Football League," MPRA Paper 58907, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Ido Erev & Alvin E. Roth & Robert Slonim, 2016. "Minimax across a population of games," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 2(2), pages 144-156, November.
    8. Scroggin, Steven, 2007. "Exploitable actions of believers in the "law of small numbers" in repeated constant-sum games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 219-235, March.
    9. P.-A. Chiappori, 2002. "Testing Mixed-Strategy Equilibria When Players Are Heterogeneous: The Case of Penalty Kicks in Soccer," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1138-1151, September.
    10. Shachat, Jason M., 2002. "Mixed Strategy Play and the Minimax Hypothesis," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 189-226, May.
    11. Dieter Balkenborg & Rosemarie Nagel, 2016. "An Experiment on Forward vs. Backward Induction: How Fairness and Level k Reasoning Matter," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 17(3), pages 378-408, August.
    12. Isabelle Brocas & Juan D. Carrillo, 2022. "The development of randomization and deceptive behavior in mixed strategy games," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(2), pages 825-862, May.
    13. Romain Gauriot & Lionel Page & John Wooders, 2016. "Nash at Wimbledon: Evidence from Half a Million Serves," QuBE Working Papers 046, QUT Business School.
    14. Spiliopoulos, Leonidas, 2012. "Pattern recognition and subjective belief learning in a repeated constant-sum game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 921-935.
    15. Dale, Donald J. & Morgan, John & Rosenthal, Robert W., 2002. "Coordination through Reputations: A Laboratory Experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 52-88, January.
    16. Spiliopoulos, Leonidas, 2013. "Beyond fictitious play beliefs: Incorporating pattern recognition and similarity matching," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 69-85.
    17. Colin Camerer & Teck-Hua Ho & Juin Kuan Chong, 2003. "A cognitive hierarchy theory of one-shot games: Some preliminary results," Levine's Bibliography 506439000000000495, UCLA Department of Economics.
    18. Lensberg, Terje & Schenk-Hoppé, Klaus Reiner, 2021. "Cold play: Learning across bimatrix games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 419-441.
    19. Van Essen, Matt & Wooders, John, 2015. "Blind stealing: Experience and expertise in a mixed-strategy poker experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 186-206.
    20. Weinstein-Gould Jesse, 2009. "Keeping the Hitter Off Balance: Mixed Strategies in Baseball," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-20, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:71:y:2011:i:1:p:88-99. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.