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High Stakes Behavior with Low Payoffs: Inducing Preferences with Holt-Laury Gambles

Author

Listed:
  • John Dickhaut

    (Economic Science Institute, Chapman University)

  • Daniel Houser

    (Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science, George Mason University)

  • Jason A. Aimone

    (Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science, George Mason University)

  • Dorina Tila

    (Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science, George Mason University)

  • Cathleen A. Johnson

    (Department of Economics, The University of Arizona)

Abstract
A continuing goal of experiments is to understand risky decisions when the decisions are important. Often a decision’s importance is related to the magnitude of the associated monetary stake. Khaneman and Tversky (1979) argue that risky decisions in high stakes environments can be informed using questionnaires with hypothetical choices (since subjects have no incentive to answer questions falsely.) However, results reported by Holt and Laury (2002, henceforth HL), as well as replications by Harrison (2005) suggest that decisions in “high” monetary payoff environments are not well-predicted by questionnaire responses. Thus, a potential implication of the HL results is that studying decisions in high stakes environments requires using high stakes. Here we describe and implement a procedure for studying high-stakes behavior in a low-stakes environment. We use the binary-lottery reward technique (introduced by Berg, et al (1986)) to induce preferences in a way that is consistent with the decisions reported by HL under a variety of stake sizes. The resulting decisions, all of which were made in a low-stakes environment, reflect surprisingly well the noisy choice behavior reported by HL’s subjects even in their highstakes environment. This finding is important because inducing preferences evidently requires substantially less cost than paying people to participate in extremely high-stakes games.

Suggested Citation

  • John Dickhaut & Daniel Houser & Jason A. Aimone & Dorina Tila & Cathleen A. Johnson, 2008. "High Stakes Behavior with Low Payoffs: Inducing Preferences with Holt-Laury Gambles," Working Papers 08-11, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:chu:wpaper:08-11
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Reinhard Selten & Abdolkarim Sadrieh & Klaus Abbink, 1999. "Money Does Not Induce Risk Neutral Behavior, but Binary Lotteries Do even Worse," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 213-252, June.
    2. Camerer, Colin F & Hogarth, Robin M, 1999. "The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production Framework," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 7-42, December.
    3. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    4. Helga Fehr-Duda & Adrian Bruhin & Thomas Epper & Renate Schubert, 2010. "Rationality on the rise: Why relative risk aversion increases with stake size," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 147-180, April.
    5. Houser, Daniel & Vetter, Stefan & Winter, Joachim, 2012. "Fairness and cheating," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1645-1655.
    6. Smith, Vernon L, 1976. "Experimental Economics: Induced Value Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(2), pages 274-279, May.
    7. Harrison, Glenn W, 1994. "Expected Utility Theory and the Experimentalists," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 223-253.
    8. Rapoport, Amnon & Stein, William E. & Parco, James E. & Nicholas, Thomas E., 2003. "Equilibrium play and adaptive learning in a three-person centipede game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 239-265, May.
    9. Berg, Joyce E & Dickhaut, John W & Rietz, Thomas A, 2003. "Preference Reversals and Induced Risk Preferences: Evidence for Noisy Maximization," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 139-170, October.
    10. Joyce E. Berg & Lane A. Daley & John W. Dickhaut & John R. O'Brien, 1986. "Controlling Preferences for Lotteries on Units of Experimental Exchange," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(2), pages 281-306.
    11. Glenn W. Harrison & Eric Johnson & Melayne M. McInnes & E. Elisabet Rutström, 2005. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 897-901, June.
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    Cited by:

    1. Grüner Sven, 2020. "Sample Size Calculation in Economic Experiments," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 240(6), pages 791-823, December.
    2. Petrolia, Daniel R., 2016. "Risk preferences, risk perceptions, and risky food," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 37-48.
    3. Aimone, Jason A. & Pan, Xiaofei, 2020. "Blameable and imperfect: A study of risk-taking and accountability," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 196-216.
    4. Kirchkamp, Oliver & Oechssler, Joerg & Sofianos, Andis, 2021. "The Binary Lottery Procedure does not induce risk neutrality in the Holt & Laury and Eckel & Grossman tasks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 348-369.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

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