Male and overconfident groups overinvest due to inflated perceived ability to beat the odds

Organizational decisions are often made by groups rather than individuals. Depending on the group composition, each member's characteristics—like gender and motivated beliefs—can influence the final group investment decision. To capture this, we design two types of investment situations in a randomized controlled laboratory experiment—one with fixed chances of success and one with performance-dependent chances of success. This novel design entails the perceived ability to “beat the odds” of the investment and thus models real-life investment situations more accurately than standard lottery choice. Our results demonstrate the benefits of mixed group composition in terms of both gender and overconfidence: Groups with all men and/or all overconfident group members consistently overinvest when a possibility to “beat the odds” is present, but not in standard situations. We explore several channels for our results and find that (i) individual probability perception, (ii) leader responsibility allocation and (iii) spillover effects from priming show significant effects

Strategic gaze: an interactive eye-tracking study

We present an interactive eye-tracking study that explores the strategic use of gaze. We analyze gaze behavior in an experiment with four simple games. The game can either be a competitive (hide & seek) game in which players want to be unpredictable, or a game of common interest in which players want to be predictable. Gaze is transmitted either in real time to another subject, or it is not transmitted and therefore non-strategic. We find that subjects are able to interpret non-strategic gaze, obtaining substantially higher payoffs than subjects who do not see gaze. If gaze is transmitted in real time, gaze becomes more informative in the common interest games and players predominantly succeed to coordinate on efficient outcomes. In contrast, gaze becomes less informative in the competitive game

Identity breeds inequality:Evidence from a laboratory experiment on redistribution

Politics is increasingly driven by identity cleavages, which also affect the discussion about inequality and redistribution. Typically, redistribution is meant to reduce inequality, implying that redistribution neither makes the rich richer nor the former poor the new rich. However, if identity affects redistribution, these limits might no longer be binding, and redistribution could further increase existing inequalities (making the rich richer) or reverse the income ordering to favor the once-poor (which can even be inequality increasing if redistribution is strong). In a laboratory experiment, we investigate redistribution via a novel smooth one-dimensional distribution mechanism that also allows for an increase or reversal of inequality. Decision-makers receive information about the recipients' political orientation, nationality, or seat number during the experiment, and we vary the structure and source of income inequality (income is either earned, random, or unfair). We find most choices of the decision-makers involve redistribution, with only 8 % of choices sticking with the status quo. While most redistribution choices reduce inequality, a larger share—(18 %)—increase inequality by making the rich richer, 13 % of choices reduce overall inequality but make the poor the new rich, and 9 % increase inequality by making the poor very rich. Thus, 40 % of decisions are redistributions that are typically unobserved in common redistribution designs. Ingroup favoritism is a strong motive for redistribution in general, and it is the most important motive for redistribution to increase or reverse inequality. Indeed, 85 % of the inequality-increasing or reversing decisions favor the ingroup. Complementary eye-tracking data show that decision-makers’ attention to information about the recipients’ groups and to poor outliers are related to higher levels of redistribution.</p

Sensory substitution information informs locomotor adjustments when walking through apertures

The study assessed the ability of the central nervous system (CNS) to use echoic information from sensory substitution devices (SSDs) to rotate the shoulders and safely pass through apertures of different width. Ten visually normal participants performed this task with full vision, or blindfolded using an SSD to obtain information regarding the width of an aperture created by two parallel panels. Two SSDs were tested. Participants passed through apertures of +0%, +18%, +35%, and +70% of measured body width. Kinematic indices recorded movement time, shoulder rotation, average walking velocity across the trial, peak walking velocities before crossing, after crossing and throughout a whole trial. Analyses showed participants used SSD information to regulate shoulder rotation, with greater rotation associated with narrower apertures. Rotations made using an SSD were greater compared to vision, movement times were longer, average walking velocity lower and peak velocities before crossing, after crossing and throughout the whole trial were smaller, suggesting greater caution. Collisions sometimes occurred using an SSD but not using vision, indicating that substituted information did not always result in accurate shoulder rotation judgements. No differences were found between the two SSDs. The data suggest that spatial information, provided by sensory substitution, allows the relative position of aperture panels to be internally represented, enabling the CNS to modify shoulder rotation according to aperture width. Increased buffer space indicated by greater rotations (up to approximately 35% for apertures of +18% of body width), suggests that spatial representations are not as accurate as offered by full vision

Physical performance and self-efficacy under happy and sad moods

Two experiments involving 87 undergraduates examined whether happiness produces increased performance on a physical task and tested whether self-efficacy mediated the results. When mood inductions covered the full range from happy to sad, mood influenced physical performance; however, evidence regarding self-efficacy was equivocal. Efficacy for the performed task was unaffected by mood, although it remained a good predictor of performance. Since mood altered efficacy for a nonperformed but more familiar task, inconsistent efficacy results could reflect task differences. Findings offer prospects for the use of mood inductions in practical sporting situations