IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0252540.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

To maximize or randomize? An experimental study of probability matching in financial decision making

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew W Lo
  • Katherine P Marlowe
  • Ruixun Zhang

Abstract

Probability matching, also known as the “matching law” or Herrnstein’s Law, has long puzzled economists and psychologists because of its apparent inconsistency with basic self-interest. We conduct an experiment with real monetary payoffs in which each participant plays a computer game to guess the outcome of a binary lottery. In addition to finding strong evidence for probability matching, we document different tendencies towards randomization in different payoff environments—as predicted by models of the evolutionary origin of probability matching—after controlling for a wide range of demographic and socioeconomic variables. We also find several individual differences in the tendency to maximize or randomize, correlated with wealth and other socioeconomic factors. In particular, subjects who have taken probability and statistics classes and those who self-reported finding a pattern in the game are found to have randomized more, contrary to the common wisdom that those with better understanding of probabilistic reasoning are more likely to be rational economic maximizers. Our results provide experimental evidence that individuals—even those with experience in probability and investing—engage in randomized behavior and probability matching, underscoring the role of the environment as a driver of behavioral anomalies.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew W Lo & Katherine P Marlowe & Ruixun Zhang, 2021. "To maximize or randomize? An experimental study of probability matching in financial decision making," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(8), pages 1-20, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0252540
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0252540
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0252540
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0252540&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0252540?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fama, Eugene F, 1970. "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 383-417, May.
    2. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1972. "Expectations and the neutrality of money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 103-124, April.
    3. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron S, 1973. "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 637-654, May-June.
    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. Tuoyuan Cheng & Kan Chen, 2023. "A General Framework for Portfolio Construction Based on Generative Models of Asset Returns," Papers 2312.03294, arXiv.org.
    2. Hirshleifer, David & Lo, Andrew W. & Zhang, Ruixun, 2023. "Social contagion and the survival of diverse investment styles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).

    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. Thomas J. Brennan & Andrew W. Lo & Ruixun Zhang, 2018. "Variety Is the Spice of Life: Irrational Behavior as Adaptation to Stochastic Environments," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 8(03), pages 1-39, September.
    2. Thomas Delcey & Francesco Sergi, 2019. "The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Rational Expectations. How Did They Meet and Live (Happily?) Ever After," Working Papers hal-02187362, HAL.
    3. Thomas Delcey & Francesco Sergi, 2019. "The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Rational Expectations. How Did They Meet and Live (Happily?) Ever After," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-02187362, HAL.
    4. Robert C. Merton, 2006. "Paul Samuelson and Financial Economics," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 50(2), pages 9-31, October.
    5. Kartono, Agus & Solekha, Siti & Sumaryada, Tony & Irmansyah,, 2021. "Foreign currency exchange rate prediction using non-linear Schrödinger equations with economic fundamental parameters," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    6. Gustavo Silva Araujo & Ricardo Alves Carmo Ribeiro, 2018. "Is Petrobras Options Market Efficient? A Study Using The Delta-Gamma Neutral Strategy," Anais do XLIV Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 44th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 126, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    7. Alexander S. Sangare, 2005. "Efficience des marchés : un siècle après Bachelier," Revue d'Économie Financière, Programme National Persée, vol. 81(4), pages 107-132.
    8. Giuseppe Pernagallo & Benedetto Torrisi, 2020. "A theory of information overload applied to perfectly efficient financial markets," Review of Behavioral Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 14(2), pages 223-236, October.
    9. Klaus Schredelseker, 2012. "Finanzkrise — Mitschuld der Theorie?," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 64(8), pages 833-845, December.
    10. Nuzzo, Simone & Morone, Andrea, 2017. "Asset markets in the lab: A literature review," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 42-50.
    11. Timothy Johnson, 2015. "Reciprocity as a Foundation of Financial Economics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 43-67, September.
    12. Saggese, Pietro & Belmonte, Alessandro & Dimitri, Nicola & Facchini, Angelo & Böhme, Rainer, 2023. "Arbitrageurs in the Bitcoin ecosystem: Evidence from user-level trading patterns in the Mt. Gox exchange platform," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 251-270.
    13. Paulo Ferreira & Éder J.A.L. Pereira & Hernane B.B. Pereira, 2020. "From Big Data to Econophysics and Its Use to Explain Complex Phenomena," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-10, July.
    14. Linnenluecke, Martina K. & Chen, Xiaoyan & Ling, Xin & Smith, Tom & Zhu, Yushu, 2017. "Research in finance: A review of influential publications and a research agenda," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 188-199.
    15. Giuseppe Garofalo, 2014. "Irreducible complexities: from Gödel and Turing to the paradigm of Imperfect Knowledge Economics," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(6), pages 3463-3474, November.
    16. Catania, Leopoldo & Proietti, Tommaso, 2020. "Forecasting volatility with time-varying leverage and volatility of volatility effects," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1301-1317.
    17. Xuan Vinh Vo & Kevin Daly, 2008. "Volatility amongst firms in the Dow Jones Eurostoxx50 Index," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(7), pages 569-582.
    18. J. Doyne Farmer, 2002. "Market force, ecology and evolution," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 11(5), pages 895-953, November.
    19. Sensoy, Ahmet & Hacihasanoglu, Erk, 2014. "Time-varying long range dependence in energy futures markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 318-327.
    20. John Geweke & Joel Horowitz & M. Hashem Pesaran, 2006. "Econometrics: A Bird’s Eye View," CESifo Working Paper Series 1870, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:plo:pone00:0252540. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.