IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/rmm/journl/v0y2009i16.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

(Over-)Stylizing Experimental Findings and Theorizing with Sweeping Generality

Author

Listed:
  • Werner Gueth

    (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena)

  • Hartmut Kliemt

    (Frankfurt School of Finance and Management)

  • M. Vittoria Levati

    (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena)

Abstract

Human decision making is a process guided by different and partly competing motivations that can each dominate behavior and lead to different effects depending on strength and circumstances. 'Over-stylizing' neglects such competing concerns and context-dependence, although it facilitates the emergence of elaborate general theories. We illustrate by examples from social dilemma experiments and inequality aversion theories that sweeping empirical claims should be avoided.

Suggested Citation

  • Werner Gueth & Hartmut Kliemt & M. Vittoria Levati, 2009. "(Over-)Stylizing Experimental Findings and Theorizing with Sweeping Generality," Rationality, Markets and Morals, Frankfurt School Verlag, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, vol. 0(16), November.
    • Handle: RePEc:rmm:journl:v:0:y:2009:i:16
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rmm-journal.de/downloads/017_gueth_kliemt_levati.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Guth, Werner & Huck, Steffen & Muller, Wieland, 2001. "The Relevance of Equal Splits in Ultimatum Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 161-169, October.
    2. Guth, Werner & Huck, Steffen & Ockenfels, Peter, 1996. "Two-Level Ultimatum Bargaining with Incomplete Information: An Experimental Study," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(436), pages 593-604, May.
    3. Werner Güth & Hartmut Kliemt & M. Vittoria Levati & Georg von Wangenheim, 2007. "On the Coevolution of Retribution and Trustworthiness: An (Indirect) Evolutionary and Experimental Analysis," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 163(1), pages 143-157, March.
    4. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    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. Clark, Andrew E. & D'Ambrosio, Conchita, 2014. "Attitudes to Income Inequality: Experimental and Survey Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 8136, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Carlsson, Fredrik & Kataria, Mitesh & Krupnick, Alan & Lampi, Elina & Löfgren, Åsa & Qin, Ping & Sterner, Thomas, 2013. "A fair share: Burden-sharing preferences in the United States and China," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 1-17.

    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. Güth, Werner & Kocher, Martin G., 2014. "More than thirty years of ultimatum bargaining experiments: Motives, variations, and a survey of the recent literature," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 396-409.
    2. Pamela Schmitt, 2004. "On Perceptions of Fairness: The Role of Valuations, Outside Options, and Information in Ultimatum Bargaining Games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 7(1), pages 49-73, February.
    3. Philipp E. Otto & Daniel Dittmer, 2019. "Simultaneous but independent ultimatum game: strategic elasticity or social motive dependency?," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 48(1), pages 61-80, March.
    4. Giorgio Coricelli & Luis González Morales & Amelie Mahlstedt, 2006. "The Investment Game With Asymmetric Information," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 13-30, February.
    5. Adrian Bruhin & Ernst Fehr & Daniel Schunk, 2019. "The many Faces of Human Sociality: Uncovering the Distribution and Stability of Social Preferences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 1025-1069.
    6. Ubeda, Paloma, 2014. "The consistency of fairness rules: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 88-100.
    7. John A. List, 2007. "On the Interpretation of Giving in Dictator Games," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(3), pages 482-493.
    8. Kai Barron & Heike Harmgart & Steffen Huck & Sebastian O. Schneider & Matthias Sutter, 2023. "Discrimination, Narratives, and Family History: An Experiment with Jordanian Host and Syrian Refugee Children," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(4), pages 1008-1016, July.
    9. Chakravarty, Sugato & Jain, Pankaj & Upson, James & Wood, Robert, 2012. "Clean Sweep: Informed Trading through Intermarket Sweep Orders," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(2), pages 415-435, April.
    10. Sandro Casal & Matteo Ploner & Alec N. Sproten, 2019. "Fostering The Best Execution Regime: An Experiment About Pecuniary Sanctions And Accountability In Fiduciary Money Management," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(1), pages 600-616, January.
    11. Charness, Gary & Rabin, Matthew, 2005. "Expressed preferences and behavior in experimental games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 151-169, November.
    12. Khalmetski, Kiryl & Ockenfels, Axel & Werner, Peter, 2015. "Surprising gifts: Theory and laboratory evidence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 163-208.
    13. Mikhail Drugov & John Hamman & Danila Serra, 2014. "Intermediaries in corruption: an experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(1), pages 78-99, March.
    14. Agnès Festré, 2019. "On the Nature of Fair Behaviour: Further Evidence," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 193-207, December.
    15. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:5:p:1267-1289 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. van Damme, Eric & Binmore, Kenneth G. & Roth, Alvin E. & Samuelson, Larry & Winter, Eyal & Bolton, Gary E. & Ockenfels, Axel & Dufwenberg, Martin & Kirchsteiger, Georg & Gneezy, Uri & Kocher, Martin G, 2014. "How Werner Güth's ultimatum game shaped our understanding of social behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 292-318.
    17. Grohn, Jan & Huck, Steffen & Valasek, Justin Mattias, 2014. "A note on empathy in games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 383-388.
    18. Bellemare, C. & Kroger, S. & van Soest, A.H.O., 2007. "Preferences, Intentions, and Expectations : A Large-Scale Experiment With a Representative Subject Pool," Discussion Paper 2007-64, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    19. Nagore Iriberri & Pedro Rey-Biel, 2011. "The role of role uncertainty in modified dictator games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(2), pages 160-180, May.
    20. Hinloopen, Jeroen & Müller, Wieland & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2014. "Output commitment through product bundling: Experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 164-180.
    21. Tournadre, Fabienne & Villeval, Marie-Claire, 2004. "Learning from strikes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 243-264, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    decision theory; social dilemmas; inequality aversion; behavioral economics; experimental economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General

    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:rmm:journl:v:0:y:2009:i:16. 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: Friederike Pförtner The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Friederike Pförtner to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hfbfide.html .

    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.