IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rim/rimwps/23-02.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Piercing the “Payoff Function” Veil: Tracing Beliefs and Motives

Author

Listed:
  • Guidon Fenig

    (Department of Economics, University of Ottawa, Canada)

  • Giovanni Gallipoli

    (Vancouver School of Economics, UBC, Canada; Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis)

  • Yoram Halevy

    (Department of Economics, University of Toronto, Canada; Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)

Abstract

This paper develops an experimental methodology that allows the identification of decision-making processes in interactive settings using tracking of choice-process data. This non-intrusive and indirect approach provides essential information for the characterization of beliefs. The analysis reveals significant heterogeneity, which is reduced to two broad types, differentiated by the importance of pecuniary rewards in agents' payoff function. Most subjects choose actions close to maximizing monetary rewards, by best responding to beliefs. Others are able to identify these actions, but choose to systematically deviate from them – exhibiting either altruistic or competitive motives.

Suggested Citation

  • Guidon Fenig & Giovanni Gallipoli & Yoram Halevy, 2023. "Piercing the “Payoff Function” Veil: Tracing Beliefs and Motives," Working Paper series 23-02, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    • Handle: RePEc:rim:rimwps:23-02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://rcea.org/RePEc/pdf/wp23-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chaim Fershtman & Uri Gneezy & John A. List, 2012. "Equity Aversion: Social Norms and the Desire to Be Ahead," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 131-144, November.
    2. Daniel T. Knoepfle & Joseph Tao-yi Wang & Colin F. Camerer, 2009. "Studying Learning in Games Using Eye-Tracking," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 388-398, 04-05.
    3. Ariel Rubinstein, 2007. "Instinctive and Cognitive Reasoning: A Study of Response Times," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(523), pages 1243-1259, October.
    4. Amos Arieli & Yaniv Ben-Ami & Ariel Rubinstein, 2011. "Tracking Decision Makers under Uncertainty," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 68-76, November.
    5. Giovanna Devetag & Andreas Ortmann, 2007. "When and why? A critical survey on coordination failure in the laboratory," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 331-344, September.
    6. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    7. Marina Agranov & Andrew Caplin & Chloe Tergiman, 2015. "Naive play and the process of choice in guessing games," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(2), pages 146-157, December.
    8. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes, 2006. "Cognition and Behavior in Two-Person Guessing Games: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1737-1768, December.
    9. Michael Kosfeld & Akira Okada & Arno Riedl, 2009. "Institution Formation in Public Goods Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1335-1355, September.
    10. Fischbacher, Urs & Gachter, Simon & Fehr, Ernst, 2001. "Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from a public goods experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 397-404, June.
    11. Keser, Claudia, 1996. "Voluntary contributions to a public good when partial contribution is a dominant strategy," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 359-366, March.
    12. Van Huyck, John, 2008. "Emergent Conventions in Evolutionary Games," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 58, pages 520-530, Elsevier.
    13. Costa-Gomes, Miguel & Crawford, Vincent P & Broseta, Bruno, 2001. "Cognition and Behavior in Normal-Form Games: An Experimental Study," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1193-1235, September.
    14. Andreoni, James, 1993. "An Experimental Test of the Public-Goods Crowding-Out Hypothesis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1317-1327, December.
    15. Recalde, María P. & Riedl, Arno & Vesterlund, Lise, 2018. "Error-prone inference from response time: The case of intuitive generosity in public-good games," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 132-147.
    16. Battalio, Raymond & Samuelson, Larry & Van Huyck, John, 2001. "Optimization Incentives and Coordination Failure in Laboratory Stag Hunt Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(3), pages 749-764, May.
    17. Urs Fischbacher & Simon Gachter, 2010. "Social Preferences, Beliefs, and the Dynamics of Free Riding in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 541-556, March.
    18. Joseph Tao-yi Wang & Michael Spezio & Colin F. Camerer, 2006. "Pinocchio's Pupil: Using Eyetracking and Pupil Dilation to Understand Truth-telling and Deception in Games," Levine's Bibliography 321307000000000042, UCLA Department of Economics.
    19. Harrison, Glenn W & Hirshleifer, Jack, 1989. "An Experimental Evaluation of Weakest Link/Best Shot Models of Public Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 201-225, February.
    20. Croson, Rachel & Fatas, Enrique & Neugebauer, Tibor, 2005. "Reciprocity, matching and conditional cooperation in two public goods games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 95-101, April.
    21. Ariel Rubinstein, 2016. "A Typology of Players: Between Instinctive and Contemplative," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(2), pages 859-890.
    22. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    23. Elena Reutskaja & Rosemarie Nagel & Colin F. Camerer & Antonio Rangel, 2011. "Search Dynamics in Consumer Choice under Time Pressure: An Eye-Tracking Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 900-926, April.
    24. Simon Gachter & Ernst Fehr, 2000. "Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 980-994, September.
    25. Andrew Caplin & Mark Dean, 2015. "Revealed Preference, Rational Inattention, and Costly Information Acquisition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(7), pages 2183-2203, July.
    26. Isabelle Brocas & Juan D. Carrillo & Stephanie W. Wang & Colin F. Camerer, 2014. "Imperfect Choice or Imperfect Attention? Understanding Strategic Thinking in Private Information Games," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(3), pages 944-970.
    27. Alec Smith & B. Douglas Bernheim & Colin F. Camerer & Antonio Rangel, 2014. "Neural Activity Reveals Preferences without Choices," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 1-36, May.
    28. Josh Cherry & Stephen Salant & Neslihan Uler, 2015. "Experimental departures from self-interest when competing partnerships share output," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(1), pages 89-115, March.
    29. Bhatt, Meghana & Camerer, Colin F., 2005. "Self-referential thinking and equilibrium as states of mind in games: fMRI evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 424-459, August.
    30. Johnson, Eric J. & Camerer, Colin & Sen, Sankar & Rymon, Talia, 2002. "Detecting Failures of Backward Induction: Monitoring Information Search in Sequential Bargaining," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 16-47, May.
    31. repec:lmu:muenar:20867 is not listed on IDEAS
    32. Jack Hirshleifer, 1983. "From weakest-link to best-shot: The voluntary provision of public goods," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 371-386, January.
    33. Ariel Rubinstein, 2007. "Instinctive and Cognitive Reasoning: Response Times Study," Levine's Bibliography 321307000000001011, UCLA Department of Economics.
    34. Steiger, Eva-Maria & Zultan, Ro'i, 2014. "See no evil: Information chains and reciprocity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 1-12.
    35. 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.
    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. Johannes Hoelzemann & Nicolas Klein, 2021. "Bandits in the lab," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(3), pages 1021-1051, July.

    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. Fenig, Guidon & Gallipoli, Giovanni & Halevy, Yoram, 2015. "Complementarity in the Private Provision of Public Goods by Homo Pecuniarius and Homo Behavioralis," Microeconomics.ca working papers yoram_halevy-2015-21, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 02 May 2016.
    2. Clithero, John A., 2018. "Response times in economics: Looking through the lens of sequential sampling models," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 61-86.
    3. Masiliūnas, Aidas, 2017. "Overcoming coordination failure in a critical mass game: Strategic motives and action disclosure," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 214-251.
    4. Karakostas, Alexandros & Kocher, Martin & Matzat, Dominik & Rau, Holger A. & Riewe, Gerhard, 2021. "The team allocator game: Allocation power in public goods games," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 419, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    5. Nagel, Rosemarie & Bühren, Christoph & Frank, Björn, 2017. "Inspired and inspiring: Hervé Moulin and the discovery of the beauty contest game," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 191-207.
    6. Fadong Chen & Urs Fischbacher, 2016. "Response time and click position: cheap indicators of preferences," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 2(2), pages 109-126, November.
    7. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Johannes Buckenmaier, 2021. "Cognitive sophistication and deliberation times," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 558-592, June.
    8. Maoliang Ye & Jie Zheng & Plamen Nikolov & Sam Asher, 2020. "One Step at a Time: Does Gradualism Build Coordination?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 113-129, January.
    9. Clithero, John A., 2018. "Improving out-of-sample predictions using response times and a model of the decision process," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 344-375.
    10. Recalde, María P. & Riedl, Arno & Vesterlund, Lise, 2018. "Error-prone inference from response time: The case of intuitive generosity in public-good games," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 132-147.
    11. Polonio, Luca & Coricelli, Giorgio, 2019. "Testing the level of consistency between choices and beliefs in games using eye-tracking," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 566-586.
    12. Duffy, Sean & Smith, John, 2011. "Cognitive load in the multi-player prisoner's dilemma game," MPRA Paper 30856, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. 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.
    14. Xavier Gabaix, 2017. "Behavioral Inattention," NBER Working Papers 24096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. 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.
    16. repec:awi:wpaper:0626 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. J. Hausfeld & K. von Hesler & S. Goldlücke, 2021. "Strategic gaze: an interactive eye-tracking study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 177-205, March.
    18. Brocas, Isabelle & Carrillo, Juan D. & Sachdeva, Ashish, 2018. "The path to equilibrium in sequential and simultaneous games: A mousetracking study," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 246-274.
    19. Goeschl, Timo & Lohse, Johannes, 2018. "Cooperation in public good games. Calculated or confused?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 185-203.
    20. Polonio, Luca & Di Guida, Sibilla & Coricelli, Giorgio, 2015. "Strategic sophistication and attention in games: An eye-tracking study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 80-96.
    21. Marchiori, Davide & Di Guida, Sibilla & Polonio, Luca, 2021. "Plasticity of strategic sophistication in interactive decision-making," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    non-choice data; typology; tracking; response-time; coordination; public goods; complementarity; altruism; joy of giving; competitiveness; joy of winning; complexity; laboratory experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D9 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

    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:rim:rimwps:23-02. 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: Marco Savioli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rcfeait.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.