IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bbr/workpa/15.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Comparing Group and Individual Choices under Risk and Ambiguity: An Experimental Study

Author

Abstract

In this paper, we build on the emerging literature on group decision-making to study the so-called ‘group shift’ effect, i.e., groups are less risk-averse than individuals. Our study complements past research in two ways. First, we study the group shift effect under two sources of uncertainty, namely risk where probabilities are known, and ambiguity where probabilities are imprecise. Second, we study the impact of the group decision rule (unanimity and majority) on group shift. Results from a lottery-choice experiment show a general tendency for the group shift effect, regardless of the decision rule. The group shift effect, however, is found to be significant only under risk in the unanimity treatment. Our study hence provides a clear test of the effect of the decision rule on the group shift effect under both risk and ambiguity.

Suggested Citation

  • Marielle Brunette & Laure Cabantous & Stéphane Couture, 2011. "Comparing Group and Individual Choices under Risk and Ambiguity: An Experimental Study," ICBBR Working Papers 15, International Centre for Behavioural Business Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:bbr:workpa:15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~lizecon/RePEc/bbr/pdf/15.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carmela Di Mauro & Anna Maffioletti, 2004. "Attitudes to risk and attitudes to uncertainty: experimental evidence," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(4), pages 357-372.
    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. M. Vittoria Levati & Stefan Napel & Ivan Soraperra, 2017. "Collective Choices Under Ambiguity," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 133-149, January.
    2. Kugler, Tamar & Kausel, E.E. & Kocher, Martin G., 2012. "Are groups more rational than individuals? A review of interactive decision making in groups," Munich Reprints in Economics 18215, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    3. Cavatorta, Elisa & Groom, Ben, 2014. "Preferences and Exposure to Shocks: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Palestine," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100592, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Keck, Steffen & Diecidue, Enrico & Budescu, David V., 2014. "Group decisions under ambiguity: Convergence to neutrality," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 60-71.
    5. Andreas Friedl & Patrick Ring & Ulrich Schmidt, 2017. "Gender differences in ambiguity aversion under different outcome correlation structures," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 82(2), pages 211-219, February.

    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. Duersch, Peter & Römer, Daniel & Roth, Benjamin, 2013. "Intertemporal stability of ambiguity preferences," Working Papers 0548, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    2. Calford, Evan M., 2020. "Uncertainty aversion in game theory: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 720-734.
    3. Andrea Morone & Ozlem Ozdemir, 2006. "Valuing Protection against Low Probability, High Loss Risks: Experimental Evidence," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2006-34, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group.
    4. Andrea Morone & Ozlem Ozdemir, 2005. "Measuring the Degree of Ambiguity about Probability: Experimental Evidence," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2005-40, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group.
    5. Noemi Pace & Giuseppe Attanasi & Christian Gollier & Aldo Montesano, 2012. "Eliciting ambiguity aversion in unknown and in compound lotteries: A KMM experimental approach," Working Papers 2012_23, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    6. Carmela Di Mauro & Massimo Finocchiaro Castro, 2011. "Kindness, confusion, or … ambiguity?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(4), pages 611-633, November.
    7. Michèle Cohen & Jean-Marc Tallon & Jean-Christophe Vergnaud, 2011. "An experimental investigation of imprecision attitude and its relation with risk attitude and impatience," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 71(1), pages 81-109, July.
    8. Pavlo Blavatskyy & Ganna Pogrebna, 2008. "Risk Aversion when Gains are Likely and Unlikely: Evidence from a Natural Experiment with Large Stakes," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 64(2), pages 395-420, March.
    9. Ozlem Ozdemir & Andrea Morone, 2014. "An experimental investigation of insurance decisions in low probability and high loss risk situations," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 9(1), pages 53-67, April.
    10. Alfnes, Frode & Rickertsen, Kyrre & Ueland, Oydis, 2005. "Experimental Evidence of Risk Aversion in Consumer Markets: The Case of Beef Tenderness," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19285, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    11. Alexander Harin, 2006. "A Rational Irrational Man?," Microeconomics harin_alexander.34115-060, Socionet.
    12. Alexander Harin, 2005. "Gains and losses: the same or different choices? A “non-ideal” economics approach," International Finance 0509002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Sujoy Chakravarty & Jaideep Roy, 2009. "Recursive expected utility and the separation of attitudes towards risk and ambiguity: an experimental study," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 66(3), pages 199-228, March.
    14. Jean Desrochers & J. Francois Outreville, 2013. "Uncertainty, Ambiguity and Risk Taking: an experimental investigation of consumer behavior and demand for insurance," ICER Working Papers 10-2013, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    15. Kocher, Martin G. & Lahno, Amrei Marie & Trautmann, Stefan T., 2015. "Ambiguity aversion is the exception," Discussion Papers in Economics 23817, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    16. Brunette, Marielle & Jacob, Julien, 2019. "Risk aversion, prudence and temperance: An experiment in gain and loss," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 174-189.
    17. Harin, Alexander, 2009. "Общая Корректирующая Формула Прогнозирования [General forecasting correcting formula]," MPRA Paper 15533, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Dirk van Straaten & René Fahr, 2021. "Fighting Fire with Fire - Overcoming Ambiguity Aversion by Introducing more Ambiguity," Working Papers Dissertations 73, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    19. Venkatraman, Srinivasan & Aloysius, John A. & Davis, Fred D., 2006. "Multiple prospect framing and decision behavior: The mediational roles of perceived riskiness and perceived ambiguity," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 59-73, September.
    20. Anna MAFFIOLETTI & Michele SANTONI, 2007. "Emotions, competence and confidence in choice under uncertainty," Departmental Working Papers 2007-31, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Collective decision; Unanimity; Majority; Preferences; Risk; Ambiguity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bbr:workpa:15. 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: Laure Cabantous (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/smnotuk.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.