Taking it in turn: an experimental test of theories of the household

Using a sample of established couples, we conduct an experiment on household decision-making. Individual partners first make a series of dichotomous choices between household goods and vouchers for experiences and then the couple jointly face the same choices. A random lottery device is used to incentivize the decisions. We find clear evidence of turn-taking as a method of resolving disagreements. In other words, when one partner wins one disputed question, it raises the probability that the other partner wins the next dispute. Given the arbitrary order of the questions this suggests that standard decision-theoretic models of household behaviour are inadequate and that instead, much behaviour might be concerned with relationship maintenance rather than the allocation of goods.experiment; household choice; turn-taking; invariance; marriage; family

Pairs of Fish Resolve Conflicts over Coordinated Movement by Taking Turns

SummaryWhen individuals stand to gain by interacting with one another, but disagree over their preferred course of collective action, coordination can be hard to achieve [1–4]. In previous work, we found that pairs of stickleback fish prefer to synchronize their trips out of cover to look for food [5], possibly because this reduces perceived predation risk [6]. To create a degree of conflict over group coordination, we trained individual fish to expect food at one of two alternative, exposed locations and paired individuals with different expectations. Compared with isolated individuals, members of a pair showed a significantly increased tendency to alternate between foraging sites, together taking turns to visit first one individual's favored site and then the other individual's. Using a Markov-chain model to infer the individual rules underlying their joint behavior, we found that fish respond to a partner that breaks the pattern of alternation by themselves reverting to less regular behavior. Our results confirm theoretical predictions that conflict over group coordination can be resolved by taking turns [7–10] and show that, in this system, the pattern of alternation is actively monitored and maintained

Neural Mechanisms Underlying Human Consensus Decision-Making

Consensus building in a group is a hallmark of animal societies, yet little is known about its underlying computational and neural mechanisms. Here, we applied a computational framework to behavioral and fMRI data from human participants performing a consensus decision-making task with up to five other participants. We found that participants reached consensus decisions through integrating their own preferences with information about the majority group members’ prior choices, as well as inferences about how much each option was stuck to by the other people. These distinct decision variables were separately encoded in distinct brain areas—the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, posterior superior temporal sulcus/temporoparietal junction, and intraparietal sulcus—and were integrated in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Our findings provide support for a theoretical account in which collective decisions are made through integrating multiple types of inference about oneself, others, and environments, processed in distinct brain modules

Designing Experiments with Computational Testbeds: Effects of Convergence Speed in Coordination Games

Using a computational testbed, we theoretically predict and experimentally show that in the minimum effort coordination game, as the cost of effort increases, 1) the game converges to lower effort levels, 2) the convergence speed increases, and 3) the average payoff is not monotonically decreasing. In fact, the average profit is an U-shaped curve as a function of cost. Therefore, contrary to the intuition, one can obtain a higher average profit by increasing the cost of effort

Efficient coalition formation and stable coalition structures in a supply chain environment

We study a real supply chain environment from which specific information and knowledge can be extrapolated for other similar environments. We focus our research on the analysis of the interactions between members forming different teams (and between the teams themselves), and on the leader’s management of the supply chain. We note that there are many elements that contribute to the profitability of the network, which is dependent on the actions of the actors involved. We analyze certain characteristics that the actors have, such as their behavior, adaptation and learning levels, effort and willingness. Based on these components, we examine the performance of our actors and of the teams that the actors form. We provide specific calculations that take into account most of the components determining the added value to the system. One of the advantages of our main formula is that it can be used to monitor the progress of the actors, as well as it can help in the identification of problematic aspects impeding in the creation of value for the system. Our formula is very flexible and a modeler is able to adapt it to similar environments, providing him with great insight in the structures that he investigates. We study certain theoretical games from which we uncover certain information and characteristics of similar environments and settings. Moreover, we provide a real life example in order to truly understand the mechanism of the network, and validate our theoretical assessments. Moreover, we provide certain recommendations for a leader that is responsible for the supervision of actors (which have specific responsibilities) and the administration of a supply chain environment.coalition, supply chain management, core, value of the game, Coalition Factor Estimation

Learning about Learning in Games through Experimental Control of Strategic Interdependence

We report experiments in which humans repeatedly play one of two games against a computer program that follows either a reinforcement learning or an Experience Weighted Attraction algorithm. Our experiments show these learning algorithms detect exploitable opportunities more sensitively than humans. Also, learning algorithms respond to detected payoff-increasing opportunities systematically; however, the responses are too weak to improve the algorithms’ payoffs. Human play against various decision maker types doesn’t vary significantly. These factors lead to a strong linear relationship between the humans’ and algorithms’ action choice proportions that is suggestive of the algorithm’s best response correspondence. These properties are revealed only by our human versus com

Taking it in turn: an experimental test of theories of the household

Using a sample of established couples, we conduct an experiment on household decision-making. Individual partners first make a series of dichotomous choices between household goods and vouchers for experiences and then the couple jointly face the same choices. A random lottery device is used to incentivize the decisions. We find clear evidence of turn-taking as a method of resolving disagreements. In other words, when one partner wins one disputed question, it raises the probability that the other partner wins the next dispute. Given the arbitrary order of the questions this suggests that standard decision-theoretic models of household behaviour are inadequate and that instead, much behaviour might be concerned with relationship maintenance rather than the allocation of goods

Taking it in turn: an experimental test of theories of the household

Using a sample of established couples, we conduct an experiment on household decision-making. Individual partners first make a series of dichotomous choices between household goods and vouchers for experiences and then the couple jointly face the same choices. A random lottery device is used to incentivize the decisions. We find clear evidence of turn-taking as a method of resolving disagreements. In other words, when one partner wins one disputed question, it raises the probability that the other partner wins the next dispute. Given the arbitrary order of the questions this suggests that standard decision-theoretic models of household behaviour are inadequate and that instead, much behaviour might be concerned with relationship maintenance rather than the allocation of goods

Efficient coalition formation and stable coalition structures in a supply chain environment

We study a real supply chain environment from which specific information and knowledge can be extrapolated for other similar environments. We focus our research on the analysis of the interactions between members forming different teams (and between the teams themselves), and on the leader’s management of the supply chain. We note that there are many elements that contribute to the profitability of the network, which is dependent on the actions of the actors involved. We analyze certain characteristics that the actors have, such as their behavior, adaptation and learning levels, effort and willingness. Based on these components, we examine the performance of our actors and of the teams that the actors form. We provide specific calculations that take into account most of the components determining the added value to the system. One of the advantages of our main formula is that it can be used to monitor the progress of the actors, as well as it can help in the identification of problematic aspects impeding in the creation of value for the system. Our formula is very flexible and a modeler is able to adapt it to similar environments, providing him with great insight in the structures that he investigates. We study certain theoretical games from which we uncover certain information and characteristics of similar environments and settings. Moreover, we provide a real life example in order to truly understand the mechanism of the network, and validate our theoretical assessments. Moreover, we provide certain recommendations for a leader that is responsible for the supervision of actors (which have specific responsibilities) and the administration of a supply chain environment

Essays on Salience in Coordination Games: Gender, Punishment and Communication

The issue of coordination is one that has received significant attention in the experimental literature. In this thesis I delve deeper into this by combining and exploring a number of issues from the literature in economics and the social sciences in the context of coordination games. More specifically in all three chapters a common theme of the examination of the efficiency-equality trade off in coordination games prevails. In the first chapter I take inspiration from Holm’s (2000) paper ''Gender Based Focal Points'' and look further into aspects of both the equity-efficiency trade off in coordination games and gender information. In the second chapter we combine elements of the coordination literature with the literature on the effects of punishment: Most previous investigations of punishment have concentrated on the effects of punishment when free riding is a possibility (for example Fehr & Gächter, 2000, Abbink et al., 2010) and here we are able to report results from an experiment where free riding is not a possibility. In the third chapter we investigate the effects of communication in coordination games. We take our initial inspiration from Cooper et al. (1990) and Farrell (1987) and expand on these papers by examining the effects of rich and free form communication between subjects and also expanding the type of games used in the experiment. We find a number of interesting results which will be described in more detail with this thesis. In chapter one we find that an inefficient compromise very quickly loses its appeal to subjects as its inefficiency increases. We also find that unisex pairings are more successful in term of expected payoffs from coordination games as compared to mixed gender pairings. In chapter two we find that, whilst gender information and punishment do not tend to affect behaviour in isolation, the two treatment variables combined do lead to observed behavioural changes. We also find gender differences in punishment behaviours with males becoming more aggressive in punishment when playing against a male and males punishing more aggressively than females. In chapter three we find that payoff structure is highly relevant in how the availability of communication affects choices in the game. Through our novel experimental design we show that subjects will use an equitable split of earnings as a focal point for coordination rather than out of an intrinsic preference for an equitable split of earnings