IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/feb/natura/00699.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Verifying the representativeness heuristic: A field experiment with real-life lottery tickets

Author

Listed:
  • Michal Krawczyk
  • Joanna Rachubik

Abstract

Despite having the same probability of being drawn, certain number combinations are more popular than others among the lottery players. One explanation of such preferences is the representativeness heuristic (RH). Unlike previous hypothetical experiments, in the present experiment we used real-life lottery tickets, involving a high payout in case of winning to elicit true preferences. To verify if people prefer randomly-looking number combinations, participants were to choose a preferred ticket. To validate if it is likely to be caused by RH, we correlated preference for "random" sequences with the belief in dependence between subsequent coin tosses. We confirm that people strongly prefer random sequences and that a non-trivial fraction believes in dependence between coin tosses. However, there is no correlation between these two tendencies, questioning the RH explanation. By contrast, participants who have an (irrationally) strong preference for number combinations also tend to make (irrationally) specific predictions in the coin task. Unexpectedly, we find that females are considerably more likely to belong to this groups than males.

Suggested Citation

  • Michal Krawczyk & Joanna Rachubik, 2018. "Verifying the representativeness heuristic: A field experiment with real-life lottery tickets," Natural Field Experiments 00699, The Field Experiments Website.
  • Handle: RePEc:feb:natura:00699
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://s3.amazonaws.com/fieldexperiments-papers2/papers/00699.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Catherine C. Eckel & Philip J. Grossman, 2002. "Sex Differences and Statistical Stereotyping in Attitudes Toward Financial Risk," Monash Economics Working Papers archive-03, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    2. Sigrid Suetens & Claus B. Galbo-Jørgensen & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2016. "Predicting Lotto Numbers: A Natural Experiment On The Gambler'S Fallacy And The Hot-Hand Fallacy," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 584-607, June.
    3. repec:cup:judgdm:v:11:y:2016:i:3:p:243-259 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Joshua B. Miller & Adam Sanjurjo, 2014. "A Cold Shower for the Hot Hand Fallacy," Working Papers 518, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    5. Grether, David M., 1992. "Testing bayes rule and the representativeness heuristic: Some experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 31-57, January.
    6. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J., 2008. "Men, Women and Risk Aversion: Experimental Evidence," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 113, pages 1061-1073, Elsevier.
    7. Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Inference by Believers in the Law of Small Numbers," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 775-816.
    8. van de Ven, Niels & Zeelenberg, Marcel, 2011. "Regret aversion and the reluctance to exchange lottery tickets," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 194-200, February.
    9. Sigrid Suetens & Claus B. Galbo-Jørgensen & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2016. "Predicting Lotto Numbers: A Natural Experiment On The Gambler'S Fallacy And The Hot-Hand Fallacy," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 584-607, June.
    10. Rieger, Marc Oliver & Wang, Mei & Hens, Thorsten, 2011. "Prospect Theory around the World," Discussion Papers 2011/19, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    11. Burmeister, Katrin & Schade, Christian, 2007. "Are entrepreneurs' decisions more biased? An experimental investigation of the susceptibility to status quo bias," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 340-362, May.
    12. repec:cup:judgdm:v:5:y:2010:i:3:p:159-163 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Lien, Jaimie W. & Yuan, Jia, 2015. "The cross-sectional “Gambler's Fallacy”: Set representativeness in lottery number choices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 163-172.
    14. Rau, Holger A., 2014. "The disposition effect and loss aversion: Do gender differences matter?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 33-36.
    15. Helga Fehr-Duda & Manuele Gennaro & Renate Schubert, 2006. "Gender, Financial Risk, and Probability Weights," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 283-313, May.
    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. Raman Kachurka & Michał Wiktor Krawczyk, 2020. "Lottery "strategies": monetizing players' behavioral biases," Working Papers 2020-29, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.

    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. Daniel J. Benjamin, 2018. "Errors in Probabilistic Reasoning and Judgment Biases," NBER Working Papers 25200, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Daniel Chen & Tobias J. Moskowitz & Kelly Shue, 2016. "Decision-Making under the Gambler's Fallacy: Evidence from Asylum Judges, Loan Officers, and Baseball Umpires," NBER Working Papers 22026, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Daniel L. Chen & Tobias J. Moskowitz & Kelly Shue, 2016. "Decision Making Under the Gambler’s Fallacy: Evidence from Asylum Judges, Loan Officers, and Baseball Umpires," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(3), pages 1181-1242.
    4. Joshua B. Miller & Adam Sanjurjo, 2018. "Surprised by the Hot Hand Fallacy? A Truth in the Law of Small Numbers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(6), pages 2019-2047, November.
    5. Joshua B. Miller & Adam Sanjurjo, 2019. "Surprised by the Hot Hand Fallacy? A Truth in the Law of Small Numbers," Papers 1902.01265, arXiv.org.
    6. Pau Balart & Lara Ezquerra & Iñigo Hernandez-Arenaz, 2022. "Framing effects on risk-taking behavior: evidence from a field experiment in multiple-choice tests," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(4), pages 1268-1297, September.
    7. Krawczyk, Michał Wiktor & Rachubik, Joanna, 2019. "The representativeness heuristic and the choice of lottery tickets: A field experiment," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 51-57, January.
    8. repec:cup:judgdm:v:8:y:2013:i:2:p:91-105 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Shrestha, Maheshwor, 2019. "Death scares: How potential work-migrants infer mortality rates from migrant deaths," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    10. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:4:p:1060-1071 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Michał Wiktor Krawczyk & Joanna Rachubik, 2019. "The representativeness heuristic and the choice of lottery tickets: A field experiment," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 14(1), pages 51-57, January.
    12. Joshua B. Miller & Adam Sanjurjo, 2014. "A Cold Shower for the Hot Hand Fallacy," Working Papers 518, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    13. He, Kevin, 2022. "Mislearning from censored data: The gambler's fallacy and other correlational mistakes in optimal-stopping problems," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 17(3), July.
    14. Nattavudh Powdthavee & Yohanes E. Riyanto, 2012. "Why Do People Pay for Useless Advice?," CEP Discussion Papers dp1153, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    15. Migheli, Matteo, 2010. "Gender at work: Productivity and incentives," POLIS Working Papers 142, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
    16. Crosetto, P. & Filippin, A., 2017. "Safe options induce gender differences in risk attitudes," Working Papers 2017-05, Grenoble Applied Economics Laboratory (GAEL).
    17. Qingxia Kong & Georg D. Granic & Nicolas S. Lambert & Chung Piaw Teo, 2020. "Judgment Error in Lottery Play: When the Hot Hand Meets the Gambler’s Fallacy," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(2), pages 844-862, February.
    18. Karsten Hueffer & Miguel A. Fonseca & Anthony Leiserowitz & Karen M. Taylor, 2013. "The wisdom of crowds: Predicting a weather and climate-related event," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 8(2), pages 91-105, March.
    19. repec:cup:judgdm:v:14:y:2019:i:1:p:51-57 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Dolgikh, Sofiia, 2019. "The influence of subjective beliefs in luck on the decision-making under risk: TV show analysis," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 56, pages 74-98.
    21. Miller, Joshua B. & Sanjurjo, Adam, 2021. "Is it a fallacy to believe in the hot hand in the NBA three-point contest?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    22. Salem, Razan, 2019. "Examining the investment behavior of Arab women in the stock market," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 151-160.
    23. Neszveda, G., 2019. "Essays on behavioral finance," Other publications TiSEM 05059039-5236-42a3-be1b-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    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:feb:natura:00699. 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: Francesca Pagnotta (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.fieldexperiments.com .

    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.