IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eec/wpaper/1507.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are individuals with higher cognitive ability expected to play more strategically?

Author

Listed:
  • Juan M. Benito-Ostolaza

    (Department of Economics, Universidad Pública de Navarra)

  • Penélope Hernández

    (Universitat de València and ERICES, Spain)

  • Juan A. Sanchis-Llopis

    (Universitat de València and ERICES, Spain)

Abstract

This paper experimentally analyzes the relationship between cognitive abilities and strategic behavior. In our experiment, individuals play in a sequential game where computing the equilibrium is challenging. After playing the game, we measure the individual's cognitive ability using the Raven's test. The results we obtain reveal that the number of strategic decisions (played in the sequential game) increases signi cantly among the individuals with higher cognitive ability (measured by the Raven's test), as compared to those with lower cognitive ability. These results con rm that individuals with higher cognitive abilities play more strategically.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan M. Benito-Ostolaza & Penélope Hernández & Juan A. Sanchis-Llopis, 2015. "Are individuals with higher cognitive ability expected to play more strategically?," Working Papers 1507, Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia.
    • Handle: RePEc:eec:wpaper:1507
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repecsrv.uv.es/paper/RePEc/pdf/eec_1507.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2015
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    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. Binmore, Ken & McCarthy, John & Ponti, Giovanni & Samuelson, Larry & Shaked, Avner, 2002. "A Backward Induction Experiment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 48-88, May.
    3. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Espinosa, María Paz & Rey-Biel, Pedro, 2011. "Travelers’ types," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 25-36.
    4. Juan Miguel Benito & Pablo Brañas-Garza & Penélope Hernández & Juan A. Sanchis, 2011. "Sequential versus Simultaneous Schelling Models: Experimental Evidence," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 55(1), pages 60-84, February.
    5. Jones, Matthew T., 2014. "Strategic complexity and cooperation: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 352-366.
    6. Carpenter, Jeffrey & Graham, Michael & Wolf, Jesse, 2013. "Cognitive ability and strategic sophistication," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 115-130.
    7. Ralph-C. Bayer & Ludovic Renou, 2011. "Cognitive abilities and behavior in strategic-form games.," Discussion Papers in Economics 11/16, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    8. Benito-Ostolaza, Juan M. & Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Hernández, Penélope & Sanchis-Llopis, Juan A., 2015. "Strategic behaviour in Schelling dynamics: Theory and experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 134-147.
    9. James J. Heckman & Jora Stixrud & Sergio Urzua, 2006. "The Effects of Cognitive and Noncognitive Abilities on Labor Market Outcomes and Social Behavior," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(3), pages 411-482, July.
    10. Al-Ubaydli, Omar & Jones, Garett & Weel, Jaap, 2016. "Average player traits as predictors of cooperation in a repeated prisoner's dilemma," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 50-60.
    11. Saul Pleeter & John T. Warner, 2001. "The Personal Discount Rate: Evidence from Military Downsizing Programs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 33-53, March.
    12. Cawley, John & Heckman, James & Vytlacil, Edward, 2001. "Three observations on wages and measured cognitive ability," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 419-442, September.
    13. Benito-Ostolaza, Juan M. & Sanchis-Llopis, Juan A., 2014. "Training strategic thinking: Experimental evidence," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(5), pages 785-789.
    14. repec:cup:judgdm:v:4:y:2009:i:1:p:20-33 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List & Sally E. Sadoff, 2011. "Checkmate: Exploring Backward Induction among Chess Players," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 975-990, April.
    16. Gneezy, Uri & Rustichini, Aldo & Vostroknutov, Alexander, 2010. "Experience and insight in the Race game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 144-155, August.
    17. Schelling, Thomas C, 1969. "Models of Segregation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(2), pages 488-493, May.
    18. Dufwenberg, Martin & Sundaram, Ramya & Butler, David J., 2010. "Epiphany in the Game of 21," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 132-143, August.
    19. Kiss, H.J. & Rodriguez-Lara, I. & Rosa-García, A., 2016. "Think twice before running! Bank runs and cognitive abilities," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 12-19.
    20. Baghestanian, Sascha & Frey, Seth, 2016. "GO figure: Analytic and strategic skills are separable," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 71-80.
    21. Bayer, R.-C. & Renou, Ludovic, 2016. "Logical abilities and behavior in strategic-form games," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 39-59.
    22. Jones, Garett, 2008. "Are smarter groups more cooperative? Evidence from prisoner's dilemma experiments, 1959-2003," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(3-4), pages 489-497, December.
    23. Benito-Ostolaza, Juan M. & Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Hernández, Penélope & Sanchis-Llopis, Juan A., 2015. "Strategic behaviour in Schelling dynamics: Theory and experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 134-147.
    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. Cueva, Carlos & Iturbe-Ormaetxe, Iñigo & Mata-Pérez, Esther & Ponti, Giovanni & Sartarelli, Marcello & Yu, Haihan & Zhukova, Vita, 2016. "Cognitive (ir)reflection: New experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 81-93.
    2. Duffy, Sean & Naddeo, JJ & Owens, David & Smith, John, 2016. "Cognitive load and mixed strategies: On brains and minimax," MPRA Paper 89720, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Benito-Ostolaza, Juan M. & Hernández, Penélope & Sanchis-Llopis, Juan A., 2016. "Do individuals with higher cognitive ability play more strategically?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 5-11.
    2. Duffy, Sean & Naddeo, JJ & Owens, David & Smith, John, 2016. "Cognitive load and mixed strategies: On brains and minimax," MPRA Paper 71878, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Kiss, H.J. & Rodriguez-Lara, I. & Rosa-García, A., 2016. "Think twice before running! Bank runs and cognitive abilities," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 12-19.
    4. Allred, Sarah & Duffy, Sean & Smith, John, 2016. "Cognitive load and strategic sophistication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 162-178.
    5. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Smith, John, 2016. "Cognitive abilities and economic behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-4.
    6. 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.
    7. Baader, Malte & Vostroknutov, Alexander, 2017. "Interaction of reasoning ability and distributional preferences in a social dilemma," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 79-91.
    8. Oren Bar-Gill & Christoph Engel, 2020. "Property is Dummy Proof: An Experiment," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2020_02, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    9. 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.
    10. Benito-Ostolaza, Juan M. & Sanchis-Llopis, Juan A., 2014. "Training strategic thinking: Experimental evidence," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(5), pages 785-789.
    11. Baghestanian, Sascha & Frey, Seth, 2016. "GO figure: Analytic and strategic skills are separable," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 71-80.
    12. Etienne Dagorn & David Masclet & Thierry Penard, 2022. "The Behavioral Determinants of School Achievement: A Lab in the Field Experiment in Middle School," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes 1 & University of Caen) 2022-05, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes 1, University of Caen and CNRS.
    13. Cueva, Carlos & Iturbe-Ormaetxe, Iñigo & Mata-Pérez, Esther & Ponti, Giovanni & Sartarelli, Marcello & Yu, Haihan & Zhukova, Vita, 2016. "Cognitive (ir)reflection: New experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 81-93.
    14. Spenkuch, Jörg, 2014. "Backward Induction in the Wild: Evidence from the U.S. Senate," MPRA Paper 58766, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Brosig-Koch, Jeannette & Heinrich, Timo & Helbach, Christoph, 2015. "Exploring the capability to reason backwards: An experimental study with children, adolescents, and young adults," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 286-302.
    16. Chen, Chia-Ching & Chiu, I-Ming & Smith, John & Yamada, Tetsuji, 2013. "Too smart to be selfish? Measures of cognitive ability, social preferences, and consistency," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 112-122.
    17. William Neilson & Michael Price & Mikhael Shor, 2016. "Nudging Backward Induction," Working papers 2016-31, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    18. Cardella, Eric, 2012. "Learning to make better strategic decisions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 382-392.
    19. 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.
    20. Marco Mantovani, 2015. "Limited backward induction: foresight and behavior in sequential games," Working Papers 289, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2015.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Strategic Behavior; Cognitive abilities; Raven test; Experiments.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual 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:eec:wpaper:1507. 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: Vicente Esteve (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dsvales.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.