IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gre/wpaper/2018-29.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Choosing in a Large World: The Role of Focal Points as a Mindshaping Device

Author

Listed:
  • Lauren Larrouy

    (Université Côte d'Azur
    GREDEG CNRS)

  • Guilhem Lecouteux

    (Université Côte d'Azur
    GREDEG CNRS)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to offer a theory of coordination that considers the role of the context within which the individuals interact, and to develop a rigorous analysis of salience and focal points. This requires dealing with how agents choose in ‘large worlds’ (in Savage’s sense). We highlight the role of mindshaping in the formation of individual preferences and beliefs and show how social focal points can generate prior beliefs. We conclude by discussing normative implications of our analysis, since it suggests that agents are socially-embedded entities, whose preferences and beliefs are shaped by social dynamics and norms.

Suggested Citation

  • Lauren Larrouy & Guilhem Lecouteux, 2018. "Choosing in a Large World: The Role of Focal Points as a Mindshaping Device," GREDEG Working Papers 2018-29, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    • Handle: RePEc:gre:wpaper:2018-29
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.gredeg.cnrs.fr/working-papers/GREDEG-WP-2018-29.pdf
    File Function: First version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bacharach, Michael, 1999. "Interactive team reasoning: A contribution to the theory of co-operation," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 117-147, June.
    2. John C. Harsanyi & Reinhard Selten, 1988. "A General Theory of Equilibrium Selection in Games," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262582384, December.
    3. Lauren Larrouy & Guilhem Lecouteux, 2017. "Mindreading and endogenous beliefs in games," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 318-343, July.
    4. Guilhem Lecouteux, 2015. "In Search of Lost Nudges," Post-Print halshs-01426493, HAL.
    5. repec:hal:wpaper:halshs-01249632 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Nicola Giocoli, 2003. "Modeling Rational Agents," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2585.
    7. Franz Dietrich & Christian List, 2013. "Where do preferences come from?," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 42(3), pages 613-637, August.
    8. Casajus, Andre, 2000. "Focal Points in Framed Strategic Forms," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 263-291, August.
    9. Sugden, Robert, 1991. "Rational Choice: A Survey of Contributions from Economics and Philosophy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(407), pages 751-785, July.
    10. Gerardo Infante & Guilhem Lecouteux & Robert Sugden, 2016. "Preference purification and the inner rational agent: a critique of the conventional wisdom of behavioural welfare economics," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(1), pages 1-25, March.
    11. R. J. Aumann & J. H. Dreze, 2009. "Assessing Strategic Risk," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 1-16, February.
    12. Guilhem Lecouteux, 2018. "What does “we” want? Team Reasoning, Game Theory, and Unselfish Behaviours," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 128(3), pages 311-332.
    13. Guilhem Lecouteux, 2018. "Bayesian game theorists and non-Bayesian players," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(6), pages 1420-1454, November.
    14. Binmore, Ken, 1988. "Modeling Rational Players: Part II," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(1), pages 9-55, April.
    15. Judith Mehta, 2013. "The discourse of bounded rationality in academic and policy arenas: pathologising the errant consumer," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 37(6), pages 1243-1261.
    16. Dietrich, Franz & List, Christian, 2016. "Mentalism Versus Behaviourism In Economics: A Philosophy-Of-Science Perspective," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(2), pages 249-281, July.
    17. Franz Dietrich & Christian List, 2013. "Where do preferences come from? A summary," Post-Print halshs-00978022, HAL.
    18. Hédoin, Cyril, 2014. "A Framework For Community-Based Salience: Common Knowledge, Common Understanding And Community Membership," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(3), pages 365-395, November.
    19. Mandler, Michael & Manzini, Paola & Mariotti, Marco, 2012. "A million answers to twenty questions: Choosing by checklist," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 71-92.
    20. Maarten C.W. Janssen, 2006. "On the Strategic Use of Focal Points in Bargaining Situations," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 06-040/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    21. Mehta, Judith & Starmer, Chris & Sugden, Robert, 1994. "The Nature of Salience: An Experimental Investigation of Pure Coordination Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 658-673, June.
    22. repec:hhs:iuiwop:487 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Janssen, Maarten C.W., 2006. "On the strategic use of focal points in bargaining situations," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 622-634, October.
    24. Guilhem Lecouteux, 2018. "Team Reasoning," Post-Print halshs-01941775, HAL.
    25. Natalie Gold, 2018. "Team Reasoning and Spontaneous Collective Intentions," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 128(3), pages 333-353.
    26. Bacharach, Michael & Bernasconi, Michele, 1997. "The Variable Frame Theory of Focal Points: An Experimental Study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 1-45, April.
    27. Sugden, Robert, 1995. "A Theory of Focal Points," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(430), pages 533-550, May.
    28. Jorgen W. Weibull, 1997. "Evolutionary Game Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262731215, December.
    29. Marco Mariotti, 1997. "Decisions in games: why there should be a special exemption from Bayesian rationality," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 43-60.
    30. Michael Bacharach, 2006. "The Hi-Lo Paradox, from Beyond Individual Choice: Teams and Frames in Game Theory," Introductory Chapters, in: Natalie Gold & Robert Sugden (ed.),Beyond Individual Choice: Teams and Frames in Game Theory, Princeton University Press.
    31. Ben McQuillin & Robert Sugden, 2012. "Reconciling normative and behavioural economics: the problems to be solved," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 38(4), pages 553-567, April.
    32. Lauren Larrouy, 2015. "The Ontology of Schelling's "Theory of Interdependent Decisions"," GREDEG Working Papers 2015-38, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    33. Maarten Janssen, 2001. "Rationalizing Focal Points," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 119-148, March.
    34. Mariotti, Marco, 1995. "Is Bayesian Rationality Compatible with Strategic Rationality?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(432), pages 1099-1109, 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. Guilhem Lecouteux & Ivan Mitrouchev, 2021. "The "View from Manywhere": Normative Economics with Context-Dependent Preferences," GREDEG Working Papers 2021-19, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    2. Guilhem Lecouteux, 2021. "Reconciling Normative and Behavioural Economics: The Problem that Cannot be Solved," GREDEG Working Papers 2021-27, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    3. Guilhem Lecouteux, 2020. "Welfare Economics in Large Worlds: Welfare and Public Policies in an Uncertain Environment," GREDEG Working Papers 2020-08, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    4. Guilhem Lecouteux & Ivan Mitrouchev, 2022. "Preference purification in behavioural welfare economics: an impossibility result," Working Papers hal-03791972, HAL.

    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. Guilhem Lecouteux, 2018. "What does “we” want? Team Reasoning, Game Theory, and Unselfish Behaviours," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 128(3), pages 311-332.
    2. Alessandra Smerilli, 2012. "We-thinking and vacillation between frames: filling a gap in Bacharach’s theory," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 73(4), pages 539-560, October.
    3. Guilhem Lecouteux, 2018. "Bayesian game theorists and non-Bayesian players," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(6), pages 1420-1454, November.
    4. Alessandro Sontuoso & Sudeep Bhatia, 2021. "A notion of prominence for games with natural‐language labels," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(1), pages 283-312, January.
    5. Marco Faillo & Alessandra Smerilli & Robert Sugden, 2016. "Can a single theory explain coordination? An experiment on alternative modes of reasoning and the conditions under which they are used," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 16-01, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    6. Faillo, Marco & Smerilli, Alessandra & Sugden, Robert, 2017. "Bounded best-response and collective-optimality reasoning in coordination games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 317-335.
    7. Bosch-Domènech, Antoni & Vriend, Nicolaas J., 2013. "On the role of non-equilibrium focal points as coordination devices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 52-67.
    8. Swee Hoon Chuah & Robert Hoffmann & Lee Chew Ging, 2004. "Coordination and Incomplete Information: an Experimental Study," Occasional Papers 7, Industrial Economics Division.
    9. Janssen, Maarten C.W., 2006. "On the strategic use of focal points in bargaining situations," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 622-634, October.
    10. Isoni, Andrea & Poulsen, Anders & Sugden, Robert & Tsutsui, Kei, 2013. "Focal points in tacit bargaining problems: Experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 167-188.
    11. Nicholas Bardsley & Judith Mehta & Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, 2010. "Explaining Focal Points: Cognitive Hierarchy Theory "versus" Team Reasoning," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(543), pages 40-79, March.
    12. Schmidt, Robert J., 2019. "Point beauty contest: measuring the distribution of focal points on the individual level," Working Papers 0667, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    13. Schmidt, Robert J., 2019. "Capitalizing on the (false) consensus effect: Two tractable methods to elicit private information," Working Papers 0669, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    14. Zoe Bett & Anders Poulsen & Odile Poulsen, 2013. "How Salient is an Equal but Inefficient Outcome in a Coordination Situation? Some Experimental Evidence," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 13-02-R, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    15. Nicolas Bardsley & Judith Mehta & Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, 2006. "The Nature of Salience Revisited: Cognitive Hierarchy Theory versus Team Reasoning," Discussion Papers 2006-17, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    16. Bett, Zoë & Poulsen, Anders & Poulsen, Odile, 2016. "The focality of dominated compromises in tacit coordination situations: Experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 29-34.
    17. Alós-Ferrer, Carlos & Kuzmics, Christoph, 2013. "Hidden symmetries and focal points," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(1), pages 226-258.
    18. Nicolas Bardsley & Judith Mehta & Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, 2006. "The Nature of Salience Revisited: Cognitive Hierarchy Theory versus Team Reasoning," Discussion Papers 2006-17, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    19. Lisa Bruttel & Tim Friehe, 2013. "Make Humans Randomize," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2013-20, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
    20. Federica Alberti & Edward J. Cartwright, 2016. "Full agreement and the provision of threshold public goods," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 205-233, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    coordination; mindshaping; belief formation; preference formation; large world;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    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:gre:wpaper:2018-29. 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: Patrice Bougette (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/credcfr.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.