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Pay Attention or Be Paid for Attention? Impact of Incentives on Allocation of Attention

Author

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  • Ismaël Rafaï

    (Université Côte d'Azur, France
    GREDEG CNRS)

  • Mira Toumi

    (Université Côte d'Azur, France
    GREDEG CNRS)

Abstract

We investigate the impact of monetary incentives on individual attention allocation. We propose a new experimental design where the participants invest costly attention to reduce uncertainty in a two alternatives forced choice task. We compare three different incentivized environments where subjects' decisions do not impact the payoff (T0), impact their own payoff (T1) and impact other subjects' payoff (T2). Our results show that both incentives (T1) and (T2) increase the amount of allocated attention (measured by Response Time), besides the efficiency of the allocation process (measured by Error Rate) and regardless of subjects’ intrinsic motivation. Finally, we find that standard measure of social preferences (Social Value Orientation) do not explain attentional contribution in our Public Good like environment (T2). This latter result contradicts standard ones, providing new insight about social preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Ismaël Rafaï & Mira Toumi, 2017. "Pay Attention or Be Paid for Attention? Impact of Incentives on Allocation of Attention," GREDEG Working Papers 2017-11, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    • Handle: RePEc:gre:wpaper:2017-11
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Allocation of attention; Incentives; Public Good Game; Social Preferences; Intrinsic Motivation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty

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