IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/apeclt/v24y2017i13p932-935.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bidding for nothing? The pitfalls of overly neutral framing

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Duersch
  • Julia Müller

Abstract

Neutral framing is a standard tool of experimental economics. However, overly neutral instructions, which lack any contextual clues, can lead to strange behaviour. In a contextless second-price auction for a meaningless good, a majority of subjects enter positive bids – likely a case of cognitive experimenter demand effect. Subjects may interpret the lack of context as being tasked with bidding in the experiment. Adding another auction that has a context drastically reduces the positive bids in the meaningless auction.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Duersch & Julia Müller, 2017. "Bidding for nothing? The pitfalls of overly neutral framing," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(13), pages 932-935, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:24:y:2017:i:13:p:932-935
    DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2016.1240337
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13504851.2016.1240337
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13504851.2016.1240337?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Davis, Douglas D. & Holt, Charles a., 1993. "Experimental economics: Methods, problems and promise," Estudios Económicos, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos, vol. 8(2), pages 179-212.
    2. Klaus Abbink & Heike Hennig-Schmidt, 2006. "Neutral versus loaded instructions in a bribery experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 9(2), pages 103-121, June.
    3. Engel, Christoph & Rand, David G., 2014. "What does “clean” really mean? The implicit framing of decontextualized experiments," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(3), pages 386-389.
    4. Guth, Werner & Schmittberger, Rolf & Schwarze, Bernd, 1982. "An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 367-388, December.
    5. Duersch, Peter & Müller, Julia, 2015. "Taking punishment into your own hands: An experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 1-11.
    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. Navarro, Noemí & Veszteg, Róbert F., 2020. "On the empirical validity of axioms in unstructured bargaining," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 117-145.

    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. Haoran He & Yefeng Chen, 2021. "Auction mechanisms for allocating subsidies for carbon emissions reduction: an experimental investigation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(2), pages 387-430, August.
    2. Jeffrey P. Carpenter & Stephen Burks & Eric Verhoogen, 2005. "Comparing Students To Workers: The Effects Of Social Framing On Behavior In Distribution Games," Research in Experimental Economics, in: Field Experiments in Economics, pages 261-289, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    3. Jiménez-Jiménez, Francisca & Rodero-Cosano, Javier, 2023. "Conditioning competitive behaviour in experimental Bertrand markets through contextual frames," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    4. Alice Guerra & Tatyana Zhuravleva, 2022. "Do women always behave as corruption cleaners?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 191(1), pages 173-192, April.
    5. Alekseev, Aleksandr & Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri, 2017. "Experimental methods: When and why contextual instructions are important," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 48-59.
    6. Bartuli, Jenny & Djawadi, Behnud Mir & Fahr, René, 2016. "Business Ethics in Organizations: An Experimental Examination of Whistleblowing and Personality," IZA Discussion Papers 10190, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. David L. Dickinson & Jill Tiefenthaler, 2002. "What Is Fair? Experimental Evidence," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 69(2), pages 414-428, October.
    8. Christian Korth & J. Philipp Reiß, 2014. "Vacuous Information Affects Bargaining," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 921-936, July.
    9. Matteo M. Galizzi & Daniel Navarro-Martinez, 2019. "On the External Validity of Social Preference Games: A Systematic Lab-Field Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 976-1002, March.
    10. Paul M. Gorny & Petra Nieken & Karoline Ströhlein, 2023. "He, She, They? The Impact of Gendered Language on Economic Behavior," CESifo Working Paper Series 10458, CESifo.
    11. Terence C. Burnham & Aimee Dunlap & David W. Stephens, 2015. "Experimental Evolution and Economics," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(4), pages 21582440156, November.
    12. Rainald Borck & Dirk Engelmann & Wieland Müller & Hans‐Theo Normann, 2002. "Tax Liability‐Side Equivalence in Experimental Posted‐Offer Markets," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 68(3), pages 672-682, January.
    13. Frank Björn & Li Sha & Bühren Christoph & Qin Haiying, 2015. "Group Decision Making in a Corruption Experiment: China and Germany Compared," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 235(2), pages 207-227, April.
    14. Christoph Engel & Sebastian Goerg & Gaoneng Yu, 2012. "Symmetric vs. Asymmetric Punishment Regimes for Bribery," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2012_01, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, revised May 2013.
    15. Vivi Alatas & Lisa Cameron & Ananish Chaudhuri & Nisvan Erkal & Lata Gangadharan, 2009. "Gender, Culture, and Corruption: Insights from an Experimental Analysis," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(3), pages 663-680, January.
    16. Gautam Gupta, 2019. "Experiments in Economics: A Survey," Studies in Microeconomics, , vol. 7(1), pages 89-109, June.
    17. Spencer, Michael Andrew, 1995. "Structured and unstructured bargaining with positive transaction costs: an experimental investigation," ISU General Staff Papers 1995010108000018183, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    18. Bradley J. Ruffle, 2005. "Buyer Countervailing Power: A Survey of Experimental Evidence," Working Papers 0512, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    19. Lambsdorff, Johann Graf & Grubiak, Kevin & Werner, Katharina, 2023. "Intrinsic Motivation vs. Corruption? Experimental Evidence on the Performance of Officials," MPRA Paper 118153, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Paul Pecorino & Mark Van Boening, 2004. "An Empirical Analysis of Bargaining with Voluntary Transmission of Private Information," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 131-156, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions

    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:taf:apeclt:v:24:y:2017:i:13:p:932-935. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEL20 .

    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.