IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v76y2012i2p678-689.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Deconstruction and reconstruction of an anomaly

Author

Listed:
  • Engelmann, Dirk
  • Strobel, Martin

Abstract

We present a striking example of the deconstruction and reconstruction of an anomaly. In line with previous experiments we show in a one-shot setting that the allegedly robust false consensus effect disappears if representative information is readily available. But the effect reappears if a small cognitive effort is required to retrieve the information. Most subjects apparently ignore valuable information if it is not handed to them on a silver platter. We conclude that the relevance of the false consensus effect depends on the difficulty of retrieving the information and that the underlying mechanism is an information processing deficiency rather than egocentricity. Moreover, we discuss the potential relevance of our findings for other well-known effects like the winnerʼs curse and overconfidence.

Suggested Citation

  • Engelmann, Dirk & Strobel, Martin, 2012. "Deconstruction and reconstruction of an anomaly," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 678-689.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:76:y:2012:i:2:p:678-689
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2012.07.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825612001157
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2012.07.009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Charles Bellemare & Alexander Sebald & Martin Strobel, 2011. "Measuring the willingness to pay to avoid guilt: estimation using equilibrium and stated belief models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 437-453, April.
    2. Mariana Blanco & Dirk Engelmann & Alexander Koch & Hans-Theo Normann, 2010. "Belief elicitation in experiments: is there a hedging problem?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(4), pages 412-438, December.
    3. Ellingsen, Tore & Johannesson, Magnus & Tjøtta, Sigve & Torsvik, Gaute, 2010. "Testing guilt aversion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 95-107, January.
    4. Fehr, Ernst & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2007. "Money illusion and coordination failure," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 246-268, February.
    5. Hogarth, Robin M. (ed.), 1990. "Insights in Decision Making," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226348551, September.
    6. Eline Heijden & Jan Nelissen & Jan Potters, 2007. "Opinions on the Tax Deductibility of Mortgages and the Consensus Effect," De Economist, Springer, vol. 155(2), pages 141-159, June.
    7. Raj Chetty & Adam Looney & Kory Kroft, 2009. "Salience and Taxation: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1145-1177, September.
    8. Slembeck, Tilman & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2004. "Do institutions promote rationality?: An experimental study of the three-door anomaly," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 337-350, July.
    9. Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, 2003. "Learning to Open Monty Hall's Doors," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 6(3), pages 235-251, November.
    10. Charness, Gary & Grosskopf, Brit, 2001. "Relative payoffs and happiness: an experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 301-328, July.
    11. Friedman, Daniel, 1998. "Monty Hall's Three Doors: Construction and Deconstruction of a Choice Anomaly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 933-946, September.
    12. Daniel Zizzo, 2010. "Experimenter demand effects in economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(1), pages 75-98, March.
    13. Dirk Engelmann & Martin Strobel, 2000. "The False Consensus Effect Disappears if Representative Information and Monetary Incentives Are Given," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(3), pages 241-260, December.
    14. Selten, Reinhard & Ockenfels, Axel, 1998. "An experimental solidarity game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 517-539, March.
    15. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    16. Forsythe, Robert & Forrest Nelson & George R. Neumann & Jack Wright, 1992. "Anatomy of an Experimental Political Stock Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1142-1161, December.
    17. Nikiforakis, Nikos, 2010. "Feedback, punishment and cooperation in public good experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 689-702, March.
    18. Blanco, Mariana & Engelmann, Dirk & Koch, Alexander K. & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2014. "Preferences and beliefs in a sequential social dilemma: a within-subjects analysis," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 122-135.
    19. Burks, Stephen V. & Carpenter, Jeffrey P. & Götte, Lorenz & Rustichini, Aldo, 2010. "Overconfidence is a Social Signaling Bias," IZA Discussion Papers 4840, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Offerman, Theo & Sonnemans, Joep & Schram, Arthur, 1996. "Value Orientations, Expectations and Voluntary Contributions in Public Goods," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(437), pages 817-845, July.
    21. Jennifer Brown & Tanjim Hossain & John Morgan, 2010. "Shrouded Attributes and Information Suppression: Evidence from the Field," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(2), pages 859-876.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Nosenzo, Daniele & Tufano, Fabio, 2017. "The effect of voluntary participation on cooperation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 307-319.
    2. Folli, Dominik & Wolff, Irenaeus, 2022. "Biases in belief reports," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    3. Simon Gächter & Daniele Nosenzo & Elke Renner & Martin Sefton, 2012. "Who Makes A Good Leader? Cooperativeness, Optimism, And Leading-By-Example," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(4), pages 953-967, October.
    4. Dohmen, Thomas & Quercia, Simone & Willrodt, Jana, 2023. "A note on salience of own preferences and the consensus effect," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 15-21.
    5. Simon Gächter & Daniele Nosenzo & Elke Renner & Martin Sefton, 2012. "Who Makes A Good Leader? Cooperativeness, Optimism, And Leading-By-Example," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(4), pages 953-967, October.
    6. Dirk Engelmann & Martin Strobel, 2004. "The False Consensus Effect: Deconstruction and Reconstruction of an Anomaly," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp233, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    7. Daniele Nosenzo & Fabio Tufano, 2015. "Entry or Exit? The Effect of Voluntary Participation on Cooperation," Discussion Papers 2015-20, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    8. Dominik Bauer & Irenaeus Wolff, 2018. "Biases in Beliefs: Experimental Evidence," TWI Research Paper Series 109, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    9. Bauer, Dominik & Wolff, Irenaeus, 2019. "Biases in Beliefs," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203601, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Sebastian Fehrler & Baiba Renerte & Irenaeus Wolff, 2020. "Beliefs about Others: A Striking Example of Information Neglect," TWI Research Paper Series 118, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    11. Schmidt, Robert J., 2019. "Capitalizing on the (false) consensus effect: Two tractable methods to elicit private information," Working Papers 0669, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    12. Eline Heijden & Jan Nelissen & Jan Potters, 2007. "Opinions on the Tax Deductibility of Mortgages and the Consensus Effect," De Economist, Springer, vol. 155(2), pages 141-159, June.
    13. Ozan Aksoy & Jeroen Weesie, 2013. "Hierarchical Bayesian Analysis of Biased Beliefs and Distributional Other-Regarding Preferences," Games, MDPI, vol. 4(1), pages 1-23, February.
    14. Sandra Ludwig & Julia Nafziger, 2011. "Beliefs about overconfidence," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 70(4), pages 475-500, April.
    15. Khalmetski, Kiryl & Ockenfels, Axel & Werner, Peter, 2015. "Surprising gifts: Theory and laboratory evidence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 163-208.
    16. Breitmoser, Yves, 2019. "Knowing me, imagining you: Projection and overbidding in auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 423-447.
    17. Charness, Gary & Naef, Michael & Sontuoso, Alessandro, 2019. "Opportunistic conformism," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 100-134.
    18. Tobias Regner & Gerhard Riener, 2011. "Motivational Cherry Picking," Jena Economics Research Papers 2011-029, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    19. Nagore Iriberri & Pedro Rey‐Biel, 2013. "Elicited beliefs and social information in modified dictator games: What do dictators believe other dictators do?," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 4(3), pages 515-547, November.
    20. Riccardo Ghidoni & Matteo Ploner, 2021. "When do the expectations of others matter? Experimental evidence on distributional justice and guilt aversion," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 91(2), pages 189-234, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Anomalies; False consensus; Information processing; Experimental economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:76:y:2012:i:2:p:678-689. 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.