Proto, Eugenio and Sgroi, Daniel (2011) False consensus in economic agents. Working Paper. Coventry: University of Warwick. Dept. of Economics. (Warwick economics research paper series (TWERPS)).

Preview

PDF WRAP_Proto_twerp_968.pdf - Other - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader Download (736Kb)

Abstract

In an incentivized experiment we identify a powerful and ubiquitous bias: individuals regard their own characteristics and choices as more common than is the case. We establish this "false consensus" bias in terms of happiness, political stance, mobile phone brand and on the attitude to deference in a hypothetical restaurant choice, and show that it is not limited to the distribution of hard to observe characteristics and choices but also to weight and height. We also show that the bias is not driven by the fact that the tallest, happiest, most left/right-wing, etc. are more salient.

Item Type:	Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Self-evaluation, Test bias
Series Name:	Warwick economics research paper series (TWERPS)
Publisher:	University of Warwick. Dept. of Economics
Place of Publication:	Coventry
Date:	2011
Volume:	Vol.2011
Number:	No.968
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Funder:	Leverhulme Trust (LT)
Version or Related Resource:	Also in the Cage working papers series. Department of Economics, University of Warwick, number 54.
Related URLs:	Other
References:	[1] Banerjee, A. V. (1992). \A Simple Model of Herd Behavior", Quarterly Journal of Economics 107: 797-817. [2] Becker, G. S. (1973). \A theory of marriage: part I", Journal of Political Economy 81: 813-46. [3] Benabou, R., and Tirole, J. (2002). \Self-confidence and personal motivation." Quarterly Journal of Economics 117: 871-915. [4] Bikhchandani, S., Hirshleifer, D., and Welch, I. (1992). \A Theory of Fads, Fash- ion, Custom and Cultural Change as Information Cascades", Journal of Political Economy 100: 992-1026. [5] Burks, S., Carpenter, J., Goette, L., and Rustichini, A. (2010). \Overconfidence is a social signaling bias." Mimeo, University of Minnesota. [6] Currarini, S., Jackson, M. O., and Pin, P. (2009). \An Economic Model of Friend- ship: Homophily, Minorities and Segregation." Econometrica 77, 1003-10045. [7] Engelmann, D., and Strobel, M. (2000). \The False Consensus Effect Disappears if Representative Information and Monetary Incentives Are Given", Experimental Economics 3: 241-260. [8] Golub, B., and Jackson, M. (2011). \Network Structure and the Speed of Learn- ing: Measuring Homophily Based on its Consequences", Annals of Economics and Statistics, Forthcoming. [9] Jackson, M. O. (2010). \An Overview of Social Networks and Economic Applica- tions.", in Hand- book of Social Economics, edited by Benhabib, J., Bisin, A. and Jackson, M. O. [10] Manski, C. (2004). \Measuring Expectations." Econometrica 72, 13291376. [11] McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., and Cook, J. (2001). \Birds of a feather: Ho- mophily in social networks." Annual Review of Sociology 27, 415-44. [12] Mullen, B., Atkins, J.L., Champion, D.S., Edwards, C., Hardy, D., Story, J.E., and Venderklok, M. (1985). \The False Consensus Effect: A Meta-Analysis of 115 Hypothesis Tests." Journal of Experimental SociaI Psychology 21,263-283. [13] Loewenstein, G., O'Donoghue, T., and Rabin, M. (2003). \Projection Bias in Pre- dicting Future Utility." Quarterly Journal of Economics 118, 1209-1248. [14] Oswald, A. (2008). \On the Curvature of the Reporting Function from Objective Reality to Subjective Feelings." Economics Letters 100, 369-372. [15] Ross, L., Greene, D., and House, P. (1977). \The 'False Consensus Effect': An Egocentric Bias in Social Perception and Attribution Processes." Journal of Exper- imental Social Psychology 13, 279-301. [16] Titelman, G. Y. (1996) \Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings", Random House USA Inc. [17] Tversky, A., and Kahneman, D. (1973). \Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability." Cognitive Psychology 5, 207-232.
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/41113

Request changes to a record

Actions (login required)

View Item