Skip to main navigation Skip to main content
info(at)avldigital.remove-this.de
Deutsch English
Narrow Search
Search narrowed by
Last searches

Results for *

Displaying results 1 to 1 of 1.

  1. Essays on Information Acquisition and Avoidance in Games
    Author: Spurlino, Eric Cyrus
    Published: 2023

    In the following dissertation, I use theory and experiments to study how limited cognition and psychological motives influence individuals' acquisition of, or avoidance of, information in contexts involving multiple players. Chapter 1 considers a... more

    Access:
    Aggregator (lizenzpflichtig)

    Location:
    ZBW - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft, Standort Kiel
    Inter-library loan:
    No inter-library loan

     

    In the following dissertation, I use theory and experiments to study how limited cognition and psychological motives influence individuals' acquisition of, or avoidance of, information in contexts involving multiple players. Chapter 1 considers a game with costly information acquisition in which the ability of one player to acquire information directly affects her opponent’s incentives for gathering information. Rational inattention theory posits that the opponent’s information-acquisition strategy is a direct function of these incentives. This paper argues that people are cognitively limited in predicting their opponent’s level of information, and hence lack the strategic sophistication that the theory requires. In an experiment involving a real-effort attention task and a simple two-player trading game, I study the ability of subjects to (1) anticipate the information acquisition of opponents in this strategic game, and (2) best respond to this information acquisition when acquiring their own costly information. I study this by exogenously manipulating the difficulty of the attention task for both the player and their opponent. Predictions of behavior are generated by a novel theoretical model in which Level-K agents can acquire information a la rational inattention. I find an out-sized lack of strategic sophistication, driven largely by the cognitive difficulties of predicting opponent information. These results suggest a necessary integration of the theories of rational inattention and costly sophistication in strategic settings.Chapter 2 examines how the psychological effects of empathy and social pressure affect giving behavior and avoidance in a modified two-player dictator game. Previous literature on charitable giving in the field has shown that (1) people give substantially more when asked and (2) people tend to avoid the ask if possible. There are two potential explanations for this behavior: social pressure, and empathy. The social pressure theory posits that people do not enjoy giving, but dislike saying "no". The empathy theory claims that the ask causes people to have more altruistic preferences, and thus people may avoid the ask as a self-control device. To separate these two explanations, I formulate empathy as an effect triggered by the giver seeing the ask itself, and social pressure as triggered by the recipient seeing how the giver responds. I utilize an online lab experiment to separate these two theories and test each directly. In the experiment, subjects are assigned to be either solicitors for an NYC COVID-19 relief fund or to be potential donors, with a USD10 endowment. Solicitors write messages encouraging their partners to donate to their charity. Via a probabilistic avoidance mechanism, I vary (1) whether donors are shown the message and (2) whether solicitors see how much their donor gives. Subjects choose to avoid social pressure at a much higher rate than empathy. However, subjects give more when exposed to either. Evidence also points to sizable heterogeneity in sensitivity to and avoidance of these two effects.

     
    Export to reference management software   RIS file
      BibTeX file
    Source: Union catalogues
    Language: English
    Media type: Dissertation
    Format: Online
    ISBN: 9798379773687
    Series: Dissertations Abstracts International
    Subjects: Information acquisition; Avoidance; Dictator game; Social pressure theory; Potential donors
    Scope: 1 Online-Ressource (164 p.)
    Notes:

    Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-01, Section: A. - Advisor: Caplin, Andrew

    Dissertation (Ph.D.), New York University, 2023