Beliefs and truth-telling: A laboratory experiment

R.J.A.P. Peeters; M. Vorsatz; M. Walzl

doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2015.02.009

Beliefs and truth-telling: A laboratory experiment

R.J.A.P. Peeters, M. Vorsatz^*, M. Walzl

^*Corresponding author for this work

Microeconomics & Public Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

We conduct a laboratory experiment with a constant-sum sender-receiver game and a sequential game of matching pennies with the same payoff structure to investigate the impact of individuals’ first- and second-order beliefs on truth-telling. While first-movers in matching pennies choose an action at random, senders in the sender-receiver game tell the truth more often than they lie. Since second-order beliefs are uncorrelated with actions in both games, excessive truth-telling is unlikely to be driven by guilt aversion or preferences for truth-telling that are based on second-order beliefs; preferences for truth-telling per-se, on the other hand, cannot be rejected.

data source: no data

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-12
Number of pages	12
Journal	Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
Volume	113
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2015.02.009
Publication status	Published - May 2015

Keywords

Experiment
Sender-receiver games
Strategic information transmission
Belief elicitation
Guilt aversion
STRATEGIC INFORMATION-TRANSMISSION
SENDER-RECEIVER GAMES
DECEPTION
PROMISES
GUILT
COMMUNICATION
INDIVIDUALS
RULES

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jebo.2015.02.009

Cite this

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title = "Beliefs and truth-telling: A laboratory experiment",

abstract = "We conduct a laboratory experiment with a constant-sum sender-receiver game and a sequential game of matching pennies with the same payoff structure to investigate the impact of individuals{\textquoteright} first- and second-order beliefs on truth-telling. While first-movers in matching pennies choose an action at random, senders in the sender-receiver game tell the truth more often than they lie. Since second-order beliefs are uncorrelated with actions in both games, excessive truth-telling is unlikely to be driven by guilt aversion or preferences for truth-telling that are based on second-order beliefs; preferences for truth-telling per-se, on the other hand, cannot be rejected.data source: no data",

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author = "R.J.A.P. Peeters and M. Vorsatz and M. Walzl",

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doi = "10.1016/j.jebo.2015.02.009",

language = "English",

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AU - Peeters, R.J.A.P.

AU - Vorsatz, M.

AU - Walzl, M.

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AB - We conduct a laboratory experiment with a constant-sum sender-receiver game and a sequential game of matching pennies with the same payoff structure to investigate the impact of individuals’ first- and second-order beliefs on truth-telling. While first-movers in matching pennies choose an action at random, senders in the sender-receiver game tell the truth more often than they lie. Since second-order beliefs are uncorrelated with actions in both games, excessive truth-telling is unlikely to be driven by guilt aversion or preferences for truth-telling that are based on second-order beliefs; preferences for truth-telling per-se, on the other hand, cannot be rejected.data source: no data

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KW - Sender-receiver games

KW - Strategic information transmission

KW - Belief elicitation

KW - Guilt aversion

KW - STRATEGIC INFORMATION-TRANSMISSION

KW - SENDER-RECEIVER GAMES

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KW - PROMISES

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KW - COMMUNICATION

KW - INDIVIDUALS

KW - RULES

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