IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v55y2009i5p738-751.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Contagion of Wishful Thinking in Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Nicholas Seybert

    (McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712)

  • Robert Bloomfield

    (Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853)

Abstract

Prior research provides only weak and controversial evidence that people overestimate the likelihood of desirable events (wishful thinking), but strong evidence that people bet more heavily on those events (wishful betting). Two experiments show that wishful betting contaminates beliefs in laboratory financial markets because wishful betters appear to possess more favorable information than they actually do. As a consequence, market interaction exacerbates rather than mitigates wishful thinking. This phenomenon, "contagion of wishful thinking," could be problematic in many settings where people infer others' beliefs from their behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicholas Seybert & Robert Bloomfield, 2009. "Contagion of Wishful Thinking in Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(5), pages 738-751, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:55:y:2009:i:5:p:738-751
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.1080.0973
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1080.0973
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.1080.0973?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bloomfield, Robert & Libby, Robert & Nelson, Mark W., 1996. "Communication of Confidence as a Determinant of Group Judgment Accuracy," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 287-300, December.
    2. Plott, Charles R & Sunder, Shyam, 1982. "Efficiency of Experimental Security Markets with Insider Information: An Application of Rational-Expectations Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(4), pages 663-698, August.
    3. Plott, Charles R & Sunder, Shyam, 1988. "Rational Expectations and the Aggregation of Diverse Information in Laboratory Security Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(5), pages 1085-1118, September.
    4. Schnitzlein, Charles R, 1996. "Call and Continuous Trading Mechanisms under Asymmetric Information: An Experimental Investigation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(2), pages 613-636, June.
    5. Robert W. Hahn & Paul Tetlock, 2006. "Information Markets: A New Way of Making Decisions," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 51409, September.
    6. Bloomfield, Robert, 1996. "Quotes, Prices, and Estimates in a Laboratory Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(5), pages 1791-1808, December.
    7. Hales, Jeffrey, 2009. "Are investors really willing to agree to disagree? An experimental investigation of how disagreement and attention to disagreement affect trading behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 230-241, March.
    8. Justin Wolfers & Eric Zitzewitz, 2004. "Prediction Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 107-126, Spring.
    9. Camerer, Colin F, 1987. "Do Biases in Probability Judgment Matter in Markets? Experimental Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 981-997, December.
    10. Harald Hau, 2001. "Location Matters: An Examination of Trading Profits," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(5), pages 1959-1983, October.
    11. 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.
    12. Alex Edmans & Diego García & Øyvind Norli, 2007. "Sports Sentiment and Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1967-1998, August.
    13. Mark T. Bradshaw & Brian J. Bushee & Gregory S. Miller, 2004. "Accounting Choice, Home Bias, and U.S. Investment in Non‐U.S. Firms," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(5), pages 795-841, December.
    14. Shlomo Benartzi, 2001. "Excessive Extrapolation and the Allocation of 401(k) Accounts to Company Stock," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(5), pages 1747-1764, October.
    15. Sunder, S., 1992. "Experimental Asset Markets: A Survey," GSIA Working Papers 1992-19, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    16. Kimball, Miles S, 1993. "Standard Risk Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(3), pages 589-611, May.
    17. Norman Strong & Xinzhong Xu, 2003. "Understanding the Equity Home Bias: Evidence from Survey Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(2), pages 307-312, May.
    18. Joshua D. Coval & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 2001. "The Geography of Investment: Informed Trading and Asset Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(4), pages 811-841, August.
    19. Camerer, Colin & Weigelt, Keith, 1991. "Information Mirages in Experimental Asset Markets," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(4), pages 463-493, October.
    20. Forsythe, Robert & Lundholm, Russell, 1990. "Information Aggregation in an Experimental Market," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(2), pages 309-347, March.
    21. William F. Sharpe, 1964. "Capital Asset Prices: A Theory Of Market Equilibrium Under Conditions Of Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 425-442, September.
    22. Jeffrey Hales, 2007. "Directional Preferences, Information Processing, and Investors' Forecasts of Earnings," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 607-628, June.
    23. Kenneth Oliven & Thomas A. Rietz, 2004. "Suckers Are Born but Markets Are Made: Individual Rationality, Arbitrage, and Market Efficiency on an Electronic Futures Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(3), pages 336-351, March.
    24. David V. Budescu & Boris Maciejovsky, 2005. "The Effect of Payoff Feedback and Information Pooling on Reasoning Errors: Evidence from Experimental Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(12), pages 1829-1843, December.
    25. Gollier, Christian & Pratt, John W, 1996. "Risk Vulnerability and the Tempering Effect of Background Risk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1109-1123, September.
    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. Koonce, Lisa & Seybert, Nick & Smith, James, 2011. "Causal reasoning in financial reporting and voluntary disclosure," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 209-225.
    2. Bonaccorsi, Andrea & Apreda, Riccardo & Fantoni, Gualtiero, 2020. "Expert biases in technology foresight. Why they are a problem and how to mitigate them," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    3. Camilleri, Adrian R. & Dankova, Katarina & Ortiz, Jose M. & Neelim, Ananta, 2023. "Increasing worker motivation using a reward scheme with probabilistic elements," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    4. Shimon Kogan & Florian H. Schneider & Roberto A. Weber, 2021. "Self-serving biases in beliefs about collective outcomes," ECON - Working Papers 379, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    5. Gilberto Montibeller & Detlof von Winterfeldt, 2015. "Cognitive and Motivational Biases in Decision and Risk Analysis," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(7), pages 1230-1251, July.
    6. Coussement, Kristof & De Bock, Koen W., 2013. "Customer churn prediction in the online gambling industry: The beneficial effect of ensemble learning," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(9), pages 1629-1636.
    7. Nina Mazar & Kristina Shampanier & Dan Ariely, 2017. "When Retailing and Las Vegas Meet: Probabilistic Free Price Promotions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(1), pages 250-266, January.
    8. Lahav, Yaron & Santo, Or, 2022. "Wishful betting," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    9. Kurdoglu, Rasim Serdar & Lerner, Daniel & Ates, Nufer Yasin, 2022. "Unsticking the rationality stalemate: Motivated reasoning, reality, and irrationality," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 18(C).
    10. Mayorga, Diane & Trotman, Ken T., 2016. "The effects of a reasonable investor perspective and firm's prior disclosure policy on managers' disclosure judgments," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 50-62.
    11. Jeffrey Hales & Xi (Jason) Kuang & Shankar Venkataraman, 2011. "Who Believes the Hype? An Experimental Examination of How Language Affects Investor Judgments," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(1), pages 223-255, March.

    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. Lawrence Choo & Todd R. Kaplan & Ro’i Zultan, 2019. "Information aggregation in Arrow–Debreu markets: an experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(3), pages 625-652, September.
    2. Johan Almenberg & Ken Kittlitz & Thomas Pfeiffer, 2009. "An Experiment on Prediction Markets in Science," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(12), pages 1-7, December.
    3. Jason Shachat & Anand Srinivasan, 2022. "Informational Price Cascades and Non-Aggregation of Asymmetric Information in Experimental Asset Markets," Journal of Behavioral Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 388-407, November.
    4. Nuzzo, Simone & Morone, Andrea, 2017. "Asset markets in the lab: A literature review," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 42-50.
    5. Daniel, Kent & Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2002. "Investor psychology in capital markets: evidence and policy implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 139-209, January.
    6. Paul J. Healy & Sera Linardi & J. Richard Lowery & John O. Ledyard, 2010. "Prediction Markets: Alternative Mechanisms for Complex Environments with Few Traders," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(11), pages 1977-1996, November.
    7. David V. Budescu & Boris Maciejovsky, 2005. "The Effect of Payoff Feedback and Information Pooling on Reasoning Errors: Evidence from Experimental Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(12), pages 1829-1843, December.
    8. Andrea Albertazzi & Friederike Mengel & Ronald Peeters, 2021. "Benchmarking information aggregation in experimental markets," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(4), pages 1500-1516, October.
    9. Martin Barner & Francesco Feri & Charles R. Plott, 2005. "On the microstructure of price determination and information aggregation with sequential and asymmetric information arrival in an experimental asset market," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 73-107, January.
    10. Eric M. Aldrich & Kristian López Vargas, 2020. "Experiments in high-frequency trading: comparing two market institutions," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(2), pages 322-352, June.
    11. RYan Oprea & David Porter & Chris Hibbert & Robin Hanson & Dorina Tila, 2008. "Can Manipulators Mislead Prediction Market Observers?," Working Papers 08-01, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    12. Merl, Robert, 2022. "Literature review of experimental asset markets with insiders," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C).
    13. Robert Merl, 2021. "Literature Review of Experimental Asset Markets with Insiders," Working Paper Series, Social and Economic Sciences 2021-04, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Karl-Franzens-University Graz.
    14. Eduard Gaar & David Scherer & Dirk Schiereck, 2022. "The home bias and the local bias: A survey," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 72(1), pages 21-57, February.
    15. Dorina Tila & David Porter, 2008. "Group Prediction in Information Markets With and Without Trading Information and Price Manipulation Incentives," Working Papers 08-06, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    16. Robert M. Gillenkirch & Achim Hendriks & Susanne A. Welker, 2014. "Effects of Executive Compensation Complexity on Investor Behaviour in an Experimental Stock Market," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 625-645, December.
    17. Charles N. Noussair & Steven Tucker, 2013. "Experimental Research On Asset Pricing," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 554-569, July.
    18. Charles R. Plott, 2000. "Markets as Information Gathering Tools," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(1), pages 1-15, July.
    19. Lambert, Nicolas S. & Langford, John & Wortman Vaughan, Jennifer & Chen, Yiling & Reeves, Daniel M. & Shoham, Yoav & Pennock, David M., 2015. "An axiomatic characterization of wagering mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 389-416.
    20. Veiga, Helena & Vorsatz, Marc, 2009. "Price manipulation in an experimental asset market," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 327-342, April.

    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:inm:ormnsc:v:55:y:2009:i:5:p:738-751. 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    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.