A note on salience of own preferences and the consensus effect

T. Dohmen, S. Quercia, J. Willrodt*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

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Abstract

In this paper, we hypothesize that the strength of the consensus effect, i.e., the tendency for people to overweight the prevalence of their own values and preferences when forming beliefs about others’ values and preferences, depends on the salience of own preferences. We manipulate salience by varying the order of elicitation of preferences and beliefs. Although our results confirm the existence of the consensus effect, we find no evidence of a difference between the two orders of elicitation. While our results highlight the robustness of the consensus effect, they also indicate that salience does not mediate the strength of this phenomenon.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)15-21
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Economic Behavior & Organization
Volume209
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 May 2023

JEL classifications

  • c91 - Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual
  • d01 - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
  • d83 - "Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief"
  • d91 - "Intertemporal Consumer Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving"

Keywords

  • Consensus effect
  • Social preferences
  • Trust game
  • Beliefs
  • TRUST
  • DILEMMA

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