Social motives in network formation: an experiment

Literature on network formation typically assumes that people create and remove relations as to maximize their outcome in the network. It is mostly neglected that people might also care about the outcomes of others when creating and removing links. In the current paper, we develop an experiment to investigate whether people show preferences that involve the outcomes of others during network formation. We find varying evidence for effects of social motives in the settings we compare in the experiment. In the final part of the paper, we discuss some explanations for these findings

Coöperatie in spelshows

In this chapter, we argue that game shows can be a useful source of data to study cooperative behavior. The unique combination of well-defined decision problems and large stakes makes game show data complementary to both experimental and field data. Over the past years, a number of TV shows have employed a vari- ant of the prisoner’s dilemma. We summarize the results of five different studies that use these shows to test a broad range of hypotheses. Finally, we discuss caveats of game show data, and contend that the potential problems are mostly not very different from those with experimental and field data

Comparing uncertainty aversion towards different sources

We propose simple behavioral definitions of comparative uncertainty aversion for a single agent towards different sources of uncertainty. Our definitions allow for the comparison of utility curvature for different sources if the agent’s choices satisfy subjective expected utility towards each source. We discuss how our definitions can be applied to investigate ambiguity aversion in Klibanoff et al.’s (Econometrica 73(6):1849–1892, 2005) smooth ambiguity model, to study the effects of learning and situational factors on uncertainty preferences, and to compare uncertainty preferences between different agents

On the social nature of eyes: the effect of social cues in interaction and individual choice tasks

In an experimental setting, we applied a dual strategy to better understand the effect of pictures of eyes on human behavior. First, we investigated whether the effect of eyes was limited to interaction tasks in which the subjects’ decisions influenced the outcomes of other subjects. We expanded the range of tasks to include individual choice tasks in which the subjects’ decisions only influenced their own outcomes. Second, we investigated whether pictures of eyes were one of many social cues or were unique in their effect. We compared the effect of pictures of eyes with the effect of a different condition in which we presented the subjects with pictures of other students (peers). Our results suggest that the effect of pictures of eyes is limited to interaction tasks and that eyes should be considered distinct from other social cues, such as reminders of peers. While pictures of eyes uniformly enhanced pro-social behavior in interaction tasks, this was not the case for reminders of peers. Furthermore, the reminders of peers led to more rational behavior in individual choice tasks, whereas the effect of pictures of eyes was limited to situations involving interaction. Combined, these findings are in line with the claim that the effect of pictures of eyes on behavior is caused by a social exchange heuristic that works to enhance mutual cooperative behavior

Coöperatie in spelshows

In this chapter, we argue that game shows can be a useful source of data to study cooperative behavior. The unique combination of well-defined decision problems and large stakes makes game show data complementary to both experimental and field data. Over the past years, a number of TV shows have employed a vari- ant of the prisoner’s dilemma. We summarize the results of five different studies that use these shows to test a broad range of hypotheses. Finally, we discuss caveats of game show data, and contend that the potential problems are mostly not very different from those with experimental and field data

The Wisdom of the Inner Crowd in Three Large Natural Experiments

The quality of decisions depends on the accuracy of estimates of relevant quantities. According to the wisdom of crowds principle, accurate estimates can be obtained by combining the judgements of different individuals 1,2. This principle has been successfully applied to improve, for example, economic forecasts 3-5, medical judgements 6-9 and meteorological predictions 10-13. Unfortunately, there are many situations in which it is infeasible to collect judgements of others. Recent research proposes that a similar principle applies to repeated judgements from the same person 14. This paper tests this promising approach on a large scale in a real-world context. Using proprietary data comprising 1.2 million observations from three incentivized guessing competitions, we find that within-person aggregation indeed improves accuracy and that the method works better when there is a time delay between subsequent judgements. However, the benefit pales against that of between-person aggregation: the average of a large number of judgements from the same person is barely better than the average of two judgements from different people

Individual choices in dynamic networks: an experiment on social preferences

Game-theoretic models of network formation typically assume that people create relations so as to maximize their own outcome in the network. Recent experiments on network formation suggest that the assumption of self-interest might be unwarranted and that social preferences, such as altruism and inequality aversion, play a role in the formation of social networks. We developed an experiment to systematically investigate whether people show preferences for outcomes of others during network formation. We find that such preferences play a role when network decisions degenerate to simple two-person decision tasks. In more complex environments, however, we find little evidence for social preferences as a significant decision criterion. Furthermore, we find some evidence for farsighted behavior in network formation

Le parole della legge in prospettiva italiana ed europea

Il contributo analizza alcuni caratteri e problemi del linguaggio giuridico italiano contemporaneo, anche in prospettiva europea e internazionale. La lingua e il lessico del diritto sono inseriti nel progetto REI per la semplificazione e la chiarezza della lingua italiana nelle istituzioni comunitarie europe