Social Metacognition: A Correlational Device for Strategic Interactions

This study reports a laboratory experiment wherein we investigate the role of social metacognition– i.e., the ability to monitor and control one’s own and others’ mental states – in a chicken game. In the first part of the experiment, we try to implement a correlated equilibrium, a generalisation of the Nash equilibrium where players’ strategies are correlated by a third party/mechanism/choreographer. We find that social metacognition is a signif- icant predictor of subjects’ strategy choices. The experiment proceeds without third party recommendations. We find evidence that subjects with high social metacognition are more likely to play a correlated equilibrium; that is, social metacognition acts “as if” it is the correlating mechanism. We relate our findings to the individual social metacognitive ability as well as to the group composition.