IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/chu/wpaper/13-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Cheap Talk with Two Audiences: An Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Mikhail Drugov

    (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, University of Warwick and CEPR)

  • Roberto Hernán-González

    (Departamento de Teoría e Historia Económica, Universidad de Granada)

  • Praveen Kujal

    (Middlesex University Business School)

  • Marta Troya Martinez

    (Department of Economics, University of Oxford)

Abstract

In this paper we experimentally test strategic information transmission between one informed and two uninformed agents in a cheap-talk game. We find evidence of the "disciplining" effect of public communication as compared to private; however, it is much weaker than predicted by the theory. Adding a second receiver naturally increases the complexity of strategic thinking when communication is public. Using the level-k model, we exploit the within subject design to show how individuals decrease their level-k in public communication. Surprisingly, we find that individuals become more sophisticated when they communicate privately with two receivers rather than one.

Suggested Citation

  • Mikhail Drugov & Roberto Hernán-González & Praveen Kujal & Marta Troya Martinez, 2013. "Cheap Talk with Two Audiences: An Experiment," Working Papers 13-32, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:chu:wpaper:13-32
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.chapman.edu/research-and-institutions/economic-science-institute/_files/WorkingPapers/cheap-talk-with-two-audiences-an-experiment.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Goltsman, Maria & Pavlov, Gregory, 2011. "How to talk to multiple audiences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 100-122, May.
    2. Stahl Dale O. & Wilson Paul W., 1995. "On Players' Models of Other Players: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 218-254, July.
    3. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & García-Muñoz, Teresa & González, Roberto Hernán, 2012. "Cognitive effort in the Beauty Contest Game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 254-260.
    4. Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Georg Weizsäcker, 2008. "Stated Beliefs and Play in Normal-Form Games," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(3), pages 729-762.
    5. repec:hoo:wpaper:e-89-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Ignacio Palacios-Huerta & Oscar Volij, 2009. "Field Centipedes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1619-1635, September.
    7. Nagel, Rosemarie, 1995. "Unraveling in Guessing Games: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1313-1326, December.
    8. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Nagore Iriberri, 2013. "Structural Models of Nonequilibrium Strategic Thinking: Theory, Evidence, and Applications," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(1), pages 5-62, March.
    9. Vincent P. Crawford, 2003. "Lying for Strategic Advantage: Rational and Boundedly Rational Misrepresentation of Intentions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 133-149, March.
    10. Agranov, Marina & Potamites, Elizabeth & Schotter, Andrew & Tergiman, Chloe, 2012. "Beliefs and endogenous cognitive levels: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 449-463.
    11. Weber, Roberto A., 2003. "'Learning' with no feedback in a competitive guessing game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 134-144, July.
    12. Battaglini, Marco & Makarov, Uliana, 2014. "Cheap talk with multiple audiences: An experimental analysis," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 147-164.
    13. Joseph Tao-yi Wang & Michael Spezio & Colin F. Camerer, 2010. "Pinocchio's Pupil: Using Eyetracking and Pupil Dilation to Understand Truth Telling and Deception in Sender-Receiver Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 984-1007, June.
    14. Gill, David & Prowse, Victoria, 2012. "Cognitive ability and learning to play equilibrium: A level-k analysis," MPRA Paper 38317, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 23 Apr 2012.
    15. Uri Gneezy, 2005. "Deception: The Role of Consequences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 384-394, March.
    16. Farrell, Joseph & Gibbons, Robert, 1989. "Cheap Talk with Two Audiences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(5), pages 1214-1223, December.
    17. Battaglini, Marco & Makarov, Uliana, 2014. "Cheap talk with multiple audiences: An experimental analysis," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 147-164.
    18. Kawagoe, Toshiji & Takizawa, Hirokazu, 2009. "Equilibrium refinement vs. level-k analysis: An experimental study of cheap-talk games with private information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 238-255, May.
    19. Stahl, Dale II & Wilson, Paul W., 1994. "Experimental evidence on players' models of other players," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 309-327, December.
    20. repec:mpr:mprres:7497 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Shane Frederick, 2005. "Cognitive Reflection and Decision Making," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 25-42, Fall.
    22. repec:pri:metric:p012_2011_revised%20july%2010%202012_battaglini_makarov.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Altmann, Steffen & Falk, Armin & Grunewald, Andreas, 2013. "Incentives and Information as Driving Forces of Default Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 7610, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. van Gils, Freek & Müller, Wieland & Prüfer, Jens, 2020. "Big Data and Democracy," Other publications TiSEM ecc11d8d-1478-4dd2-b570-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Xinyu Li & Ronald Peeters, 2016. "Cheap Talk with Multiple Strategically Interacting Audiences: An Experimental Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-14, October.
    4. Ertac, Seda & Koçkesen, Levent & Ozdemir, Duygu, 2016. "The role of verifiability and privacy in the strategic provision of performance feedback: Theory and experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 24-45.

    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. Allred, Sarah & Duffy, Sean & Smith, John, 2016. "Cognitive load and strategic sophistication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 162-178.
    2. Ye Jin, 2021. "Does level-k behavior imply level-k thinking?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 330-353, March.
    3. Duffy, Sean & Smith, John, 2014. "Cognitive load in the multi-player prisoner's dilemma game: Are there brains in games?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 47-56.
    4. María Cubel & Santiago Sanchez-Pages, 2014. "Gender differences and stereotypes in the beauty contest," Working Papers 2014/13, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    5. Xiaolin Li & Özalp Özer & Upender Subramanian, 2022. "Are We Strategically Naïve or Guided by Trust and Trustworthiness in Cheap-Talk Communication?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(1), pages 376-398, January.
    6. Li, Xiaolin & Özer, Özalp & Subramanian, Upender, 2022. "Are we strategically naïve or guided by trust and trustworthiness in cheap-talk communication?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107103, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Georganas, Sotiris & Healy, Paul J. & Weber, Roberto A., 2015. "On the persistence of strategic sophistication," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 369-400.
    8. Maria Cubel & Santiago Sanchez-Pages, 2016. "Gender differences and stereotypes in strategic thinking," UB School of Economics Working Papers 2016/338, University of Barcelona School of Economics.
    9. Giovanna Devetag & Sibilla Guida & Luca Polonio, 2016. "An eye-tracking study of feature-based choice in one-shot games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(1), pages 177-201, March.
    10. Hagenbach, Jeanne & Perez-Richet, Eduardo, 2018. "Communication with evidence in the lab," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 139-165.
    11. María Cubel & Santiago Sanchez-Pages, 2014. "Gender differences and stereotypes in the beauty contest," Working Papers 2014/13, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    12. Gill, David & Prowse, Victoria, 2012. "Cognitive ability and learning to play equilibrium: A level-k analysis," MPRA Paper 38317, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 23 Apr 2012.
    13. Ellingsen, Tore & Östling, Robert & Wengström, Erik, 2018. "How does communication affect beliefs in one-shot games with complete information?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 153-181.
    14. Lai, Ernest K. & Lim, Wooyoung, 2012. "Authority and communication in the laboratory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 541-560.
    15. Teck-Hua Ho & So-Eun Park & Xuanming Su, 2021. "A Bayesian Level- k Model in n -Person Games," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(3), pages 1622-1638, March.
    16. Dietmar Fehr & Steffen Huck, 2016. "Who knows it is a game? On strategic awareness and cognitive ability," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(4), pages 713-726, December.
    17. Lai, Ernest K. & Lim, Wooyoung & Wang, Joseph Tao-yi, 2015. "An experimental analysis of multidimensional cheap talk," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 114-144.
    18. Kyle Hyndman & Antoine Terracol & Jonathan Vaksmann, 2022. "Beliefs and (in)stability in normal-form games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(4), pages 1146-1172, September.
    19. David Ettinger & Philippe Jehiel, 2021. "An experiment on deception, reputation and trust," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(3), pages 821-853, September.
    20. Bayer, Ralph C. & Renou, Ludovic, 2016. "Logical omniscience at the laboratory," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 41-49.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cheap Talk; Communication; Experiment; Level-k; Cognitive ability; Cognitive Reflection Test;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    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:chu:wpaper:13-32. 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: Megan Luetje (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esichus.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.