An Experimental Investigation on Learning and Context Effects

Novarese, Marco and Chelini, Chiara and Spada, Anna and Ambrosino, Angela and Trigona, Carla (2010): An Experimental Investigation on Learning and Context Effects.

Abstract

This paper revisited Gregory Bateson’s theory of hierarchical learning through an experiment testing the existence of context effect and learning spill-over in two following games: a coordination game and a two-step battle-of-the sexes. The first part of the experiment is seen as a kind of training period. The different treatments of the coordination game are, in fact, designed so to reinforce different representations of the games, requiring to look at different aspects of a series of images shown in the screen. The second game allows testing if differences in training determine different behaviors in a same situation. Our experiment suggests that the preliminary training influences how the second game is perceived. While the incentive structure of the battle-of-the sexes is not identical to the coordination game, the presence of an image determines a different kind of context similarity with the previous one.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: hierarchical learning, Bateson, experiment, context effects, coordination
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D0 - General > D03 - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches > B50 - General

References

Axelrod, R. (1984). The Evolution of Cooperation, Basic Books, New York.

Bateson, G. (1972). Steps Toward an Ecology of Mind, Ballantine Books, New York.

Bowles, S. (2004). Microeconomics: behaviour, institutions, and evolution, Russell Sage Foundation, New York; Princeton University Press, Princeton, Oxford.

Cabrales A. , Nagel R. , Armenter, R. (2007). Equilibrium Selection through incomplete information in coordination games: an experimental study. Experimental Economics, 10, 221-234.

Camerer C. F. (1998). Mental representations of games. Working Paper. California Institute of Technology.

Camerer C. , Knez M. (2000). Increasing cooperation in prisoner’s dilemmas by establishing a precedent of efficiency coordination in games, Social Science Working Paper 1080, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology.

Camerer C. F. (2003). Behavioural Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interactions. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

Eckel C. C. , Wilson R.K. (2007). Social learning in coordination games: does status matter? Experimental Economics, 10, 317-329.

Egidi M. , Narduzzo A. (1997). The Emergence of path-dependent behaviours in cooperative contexts. International Journal of Industrial Organization, 15(6), 677-709.

Harsanyi J. , Selten R. (1988). A general theory of equilibrium selection in Games, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Henrich J. (2000). Does Culture Matter in Economic Behaviour? Ultimatum Game Bargaining Among the Machiguenga of the Peruvian Amazon, The American Economic Review, 90(4), 973-979.

Henrich J. , Boyd R. , Bowles S. , Camerer C. , Fehr E. , Gintis H. , Mc Elreath R. (2001). In search of Homo Economicus: Behavioural Experiments in 15 small-scales societies”, The American Economic Review, 91(2), pp. 73-78.

Hoffman E. , McCabe K, Shachat K, Smith V.L. (1994). Preferences, property rights and anonymity in bargaining games, Games and Economic Behaviour, 7, 346-380.

Hoffman E. , McCabe K. , Smith V.L. (2000). The impact of exchange context on the activation of equity in ultimatum games”, Experimental Economics 3, 5-9.

Larrick R.P. , Blount S. (1997). The claiming effect: Why players are more generous in social dilemmas than in ultimatum games”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 810-825.

Mehta J. , Starmer, C. , Sugden, R. (1994). The Nature of Salience: an Experimental Investigation of Pure Coordination Games, The American Economic Review, 84(3), 658-673.

Rizzello S. (2004), “Knowledge as a Path-dependent Process”, Journal of Bioeconomics 6: 255-274

Schelling T. (1960). The Strategy of Conflict, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

Smith, V.L. (2008). Rationality in Economics: Constructivist and Ecological Forms, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Sugden, R. (1995). A Theory of Focal Points, Economic Journal, 105(430), 533-550.

Sugden, R. (1998). “The Role of Inductive Reasoning in the Evolution of Conventions”, Law and Philosophy, 17(4), 377-410.

Sugden R, Zamarrón I.E. (2006). Finding the key: the riddle of focal points, Journal of Economic Psychology, 27, 609-621.

Tversky A. , Kahneman D. (1981). The framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice. Science, 211(4481), 453-458.

Warglien M., Devetag M.G., Legrenzi, P. (1999) I modelli mentali dei giochi: focalizzazione e rappresentazioni selettive, Sistemi Intelligenti, 11, 85-112.

Witt, U. (2003). The Evolving Economy: essays on the evolutionary approach to economics. Edward Elgard, Cheltenham.