IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v94y2013icp222-233.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

You cannot gamble on others: Dissociable systems for strategic uncertainty and risk in the brain

Author

Listed:
  • Ekins, W. Gavin
  • Caceda, Ricardo
  • Capra, C. Monica
  • Berns, Gregory S.

Abstract

This paper tests whether strategic uncertainty employs circuits in the brain that encode risk and utility, or circuits that are involved in Theory of Mind (ToM). We compare participants’ decisions in a stag-hunt game with an equivalent choice between Bernoulli lotteries where the probabilities are equal to the mixed Nash equilibrium of the stag hunt game. Behavioral data suggests that most participants are more willing to choose the payoff-dominant option in a stag-hunt game than the equivalent lottery. Neuroimaging shows that activations in the regions of the brain commonly associated with ToM are correlated with a participant's propensity to choose payoff dominant. This suggests that individuals who mentalize the other person are more likely to be cooperative than those who do not.

Suggested Citation

  • Ekins, W. Gavin & Caceda, Ricardo & Capra, C. Monica & Berns, Gregory S., 2013. "You cannot gamble on others: Dissociable systems for strategic uncertainty and risk in the brain," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 222-233.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:94:y:2013:i:c:p:222-233
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2013.07.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268113001728
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2013.07.006?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. Van Huyck, John B & Battalio, Raymond C & Beil, Richard O, 1990. "Tacit Coordination Games, Strategic Uncertainty, and Coordination Failure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 234-248, March.
    2. Aumann, Robert J, 1987. "Correlated Equilibrium as an Expression of Bayesian Rationality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(1), pages 1-18, January.
    3. Straub, Paul G., 1995. "Risk dominance and coordination failures in static games," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 339-363.
    4. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1991. "Comments on the Interpretation of Game Theory," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(4), pages 909-924, July.
    5. Camelia Kuhnen & Brian Knutson, 2005. "The Neural Basis of Financial Risk Taking," Experimental 0509001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Battalio, Raymond & Samuelson, Larry & Van Huyck, John, 2001. "Optimization Incentives and Coordination Failure in Laboratory Stag Hunt Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(3), pages 749-764, May.
    7. Roy Radner & Robert W. Rosenthal, 1982. "Private Information and Pure-Strategy Equilibria," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 7(3), pages 401-409, August.
    8. Rankin, Frederick W. & Van Huyck, John B. & Battalio, Raymond C., 2000. "Strategic Similarity and Emergent Conventions: Evidence from Similar Stag Hunt Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 315-337, August.
    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. Brocas, Isabelle & Carrillo, Juan & Kendall, Ryan, 2017. "Stress induces contextual blindness in lotteries and coordination games," CEPR Discussion Papers 12254, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Brice Corgnet & Mark Desantis & David Porter, 2018. "What Makes a Good Trader? On the Role of Intuition and Reflection on Trader Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(3), pages 1113-1137, June.
    3. Robin Chark & Soo Chew, 2015. "A neuroimaging study of preference for strategic uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 209-227, June.
    4. Butler, Stephen A. & Ghosh, Dipankar, 2015. "Individual differences in managerial accounting judgments and decision making," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 33-45.

    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. Dal Bó, Pedro & Fréchette, Guillaume R. & Kim, Jeongbin, 2021. "The determinants of efficient behavior in coordination games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 352-368.
    2. Johne Bone & Michalis Drouvelis & Indrajit Ray, 2013. "Coordination in 2 x 2 Games by Following Recommendations from Correlated Equilibria," Discussion Papers 12-04, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    3. John Van Huyck & Dale O. Stahl, 2018. "Conditional behavior and learning in similar stag hunt games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(3), pages 513-526, September.
    4. Dimitri Dubois & Marc Willinger & Phu Nguyen Van, 2008. "Optimization incentive and relative riskiness in experimental coordination games," Working Papers 08-19, LAMETA, Universtiy of Montpellier, revised Nov 2008.
    5. Johne Bone & Michalis Drouvelis & Indrajit Ray, 2013. "Coordination in 2 x 2 Games by Following Recommendations from Correlated Equilibria," Discussion Papers 12-04r, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    6. Konstantinos Georgalos & Indrajit Ray & Sonali SenGupta, 2020. "Nash versus coarse correlation," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(4), pages 1178-1204, December.
    7. Giovanna Devetag & Andreas Ortmann, 2007. "When and why? A critical survey on coordination failure in the laboratory," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 331-344, September.
    8. Kets, Willemien & Kager, Wouter & Sandroni, Alvaro, 2022. "The value of a coordination game," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    9. Poulsen, Anders & Poulsen, Odile, 2010. "Prisoner's Dilemma payoffs and the evolution of co-operative preferences," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 158-162, April.
    10. Riechmann, Thomas & Weimann, Joachim, 2008. "Competition as a coordination device: Experimental evidence from a minimum effort coordination game," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 437-454, June.
    11. Rui SILVA, 2018. "Equilibrium Selection in n-Person Static Games with Complete Information," Departmental Working Papers 2018-04, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    12. Gallice, Andrea, 2007. "Best Responding to What? A Behavioral Approach to One Shot Play in 2x2 Games," Discussion Papers in Economics 1365, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    13. John Van Huyck & Ajalavat Viriyavipart & Alexander L. Brown, 2018. "When less information is good enough: experiments with global stag hunt games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(3), pages 527-548, September.
    14. Susanne Büchner & Werner Güth & Luis Miller, 2011. "Individually selecting among conventions - an evolutionary and experimental analysis," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 285-301, May.
    15. Mielke, Jahel & Steudle, Gesine A., 2018. "Green Investment and Coordination Failure: An Investors' Perspective," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 88-95.
    16. Ryan Kendall, 2022. "Decomposing coordination failure in stag hunt games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(4), pages 1109-1145, September.
    17. Goeree, Jacob K. & Holt, Charles A., 2005. "An experimental study of costly coordination," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 349-364, May.
    18. D. Dubois & M. Willinger & P. Van Nguyen, 2012. "Optimization incentive and relative riskiness in experimental stag-hunt games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 41(2), pages 369-380, May.
    19. Georgalos, Konstantinos & Ray, Indrajit & Gupta, Sonali Sen, 2019. "Nash vs. Coarse Correlation," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2019/3, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    20. Subhasish Dugar & Quazi Shahriar, 2012. "Focal Points and Economic Efficiency: The Role of Relative Label Salience," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 78(3), pages 954-975, January.

    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:jeborg:v:94:y:2013:i:c:p:222-233. 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/jebo .

    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.