IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v98y2022ics2214804322000258.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Probability matching and strategic decision making

Author

Listed:
  • Kim, Duk Gyoo
  • Kim, Hee Chun

Abstract

This paper examines a link between an individual’s (possibly limited) strategic thinking in the 11–20 money request game and (possibly non-rational) decision-making patterns in the matching pennies games. Experimental evidence shows that subjects’ strategic behavior, which used to be understood as a result of finite cognitive iterations, is closely related to their choice randomization patterns. Ignoring some individuals’ choice randomization may bias the population variance of levels in cognitive iterations. Choice randomizers, which we call probability matchers, are non-rational in both the non-strategic and strategic settings, but their choice patterns are systematic—although inconsistent with rational decisions—and similar.

Suggested Citation

  • Kim, Duk Gyoo & Kim, Hee Chun, 2022. "Probability matching and strategic decision making," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:98:y:2022:i:c:s2214804322000258
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2022.101850
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804322000258
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2022.101850?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:bla:jecsur:v:14:y:2000:i:1:p:101-18 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Vincent P. Crawford, 2016. "New Directions for Modelling Strategic Behavior: Game-Theoretic Models of Communication, Coordination, and Cooperation in Economic Relationships," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(4), pages 131-150, Fall.
    3. Costa-Gomes, Miguel & Crawford, Vincent P & Broseta, Bruno, 2001. "Cognition and Behavior in Normal-Form Games: An Experimental Study," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1193-1235, September.
    4. Lindner, Florian & Sutter, Matthias, 2013. "Level-k reasoning and time pressure in the 11–20 money request game," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(3), pages 542-545.
    5. repec:cup:judgdm:v:11:y:2016:i:2:p:168-173 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes, 2006. "Cognition and Behavior in Two-Person Guessing Games: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1737-1768, December.
    7. Dwenger, Nadja & Kübler, Dorothea & Weizsäcker, Georg, 2018. "Flipping a coin: Evidence from university applications," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 167, pages 240-250.
    8. Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Georg Weizsäcker, 2008. "Stated Beliefs and Play in Normal-Form Games," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(3), pages 729-762.
    9. Rubinstein, Ariel, 2002. "Irrational diversification in multiple decision problems," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1369-1378, September.
    10. Edi Karni, 2009. "A Mechanism for Eliciting Probabilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(2), pages 603-606, March.
    11. Georganas, Sotiris & Healy, Paul J. & Weber, Roberto A., 2015. "On the persistence of strategic sophistication," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 369-400.
    12. Colin F. Camerer & Teck-Hua Ho & Juin-Kuan Chong, 2004. "A Cognitive Hierarchy Model of Games," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(3), pages 861-898.
    13. Marina Agranov & Pietro Ortoleva, 2017. "Stochastic Choice and Preferences for Randomization," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(1), pages 40-68.
    14. Karl Schlag & James Tremewan, 2021. "Simple belief elicitation: An experimental evaluation," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 137-155, April.
    15. Machina, Mark J, 1985. "Stochastic Choice Functions Generated from Deterministic Preferences over Lotteries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 95(379), pages 575-594, September.
    16. Nir Vulkan, 2000. "An Economist’s Perspective on Probability Matching," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 101-118, February.
    17. Ayala Arad & Ariel Rubinstein, 2012. "The 11-20 Money Request Game: A Level-k Reasoning Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3561-3573, December.
    18. Richard H. Thaler, 2016. "Behavioral Economics: Past, Present, and Future," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(7), pages 1577-1600, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Srishti Goel & Julian Jara-Ettinger & Desmond C. Ong & Maria Gendron, 2024. "Face and context integration in emotion inference is limited and variable across categories and individuals," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-17, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bayer, Ralph C. & Renou, Ludovic, 2016. "Logical omniscience at the laboratory," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 41-49.
    2. Bayer, R.-C. & Renou, Ludovic, 2016. "Logical abilities and behavior in strategic-form games," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 39-59.
    3. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Johannes Buckenmaier, 2021. "Cognitive sophistication and deliberation times," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 558-592, June.
    4. Allred, Sarah & Duffy, Sean & Smith, John, 2016. "Cognitive load and strategic sophistication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 162-178.
    5. Ye Jin, 2021. "Does level-k behavior imply level-k thinking?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 330-353, March.
    6. Alaoui, Larbi & Janezic, Katharina A. & Penta, Antonio, 2020. "Reasoning about others' reasoning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    7. Choo, Lawrence C.Y & Kaplan, Todd R., 2014. "Explaining Behavior in the "11-20" Game," MPRA Paper 52808, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Kyle Hyndman & Antoine Terracol & Jonathan Vaksmann, 2022. "Beliefs and (in)stability in normal-form games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(4), pages 1146-1172, September.
    9. Wright, James R. & Leyton-Brown, Kevin, 2017. "Predicting human behavior in unrepeated, simultaneous-move games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 16-37.
    10. Despoina Alempaki & Andrew M. Colman & Felix Kölle & Graham Loomes & Briony D. Pulford, 2022. "Investigating the failure to best respond in experimental games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(2), pages 656-679, April.
    11. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Nagore Iriberri, 2010. "Strategic Thinking," Levine's Working Paper Archive 661465000000001148, David K. Levine.
    12. Qi, Tianxiao & Xu, Bin & Wu, Jinshan & Vriend, Nicolaas J., 2022. "On the Stochasticity of Ultimatum Games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 227-254.
    13. Wanqun Zhao, 2020. "Cost of Reasoning and Strategic Sophistication," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-27, September.
    14. Gill, David & Prowse, Victoria, 2012. "Cognitive ability and learning to play equilibrium: A level-k analysis," MPRA Paper 38317, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 23 Apr 2012.
    15. Ellingsen, Tore & Östling, Robert & Wengström, Erik, 2018. "How does communication affect beliefs in one-shot games with complete information?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 153-181.
    16. Dimitris Batzilis & Sonia Jaffe & Steven Levitt & John A. List & Jeffrey Picel, 2019. "Behavior in Strategic Settings: Evidence from a Million Rock-Paper-Scissors Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-34, April.
    17. Li, Ying Xue & Schipper, Burkhard C., 2020. "Strategic reasoning in persuasion games: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 329-367.
    18. Agranov, Marina & Potamites, Elizabeth & Schotter, Andrew & Tergiman, Chloe, 2012. "Beliefs and endogenous cognitive levels: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 449-463.
    19. Strzalecki, Tomasz, 2014. "Depth of reasoning and higher order beliefs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 108-122.
    20. Volker Benndorf & Dorothea Kübler & Hans-Theo Normann, 2017. "Depth of Reasoning and Information Revelation: An Experiment on the Distribution of k-Levels," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 19(04), pages 1-18, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:98:y:2022:i:c:s2214804322000258. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.