| Abstract: |
To study switching behavior, an experiment mimicking the state of a driver on
the road was conducted. In each trial participants were given a chance to
switch lanes. Despite the fact that lane switching had no sound rational
basis, participants often switched lanes when the speed of driving in their
lane on the previous trial was relatively slow. That tendency was discerned
even when switching behavior had been sparsely reinforced, and was especially
marked in almost a third of the participants, who manifested it consistently.
The findings illustrate a type of behavior occuring in various contexts (e.g.,
stocks held in a portfolio, conduct pertinent for residual life expectancy,
supermarket queues). We argue that this behavior may be due to a fallacy
reminiscent of that arising in the well-known “envelopes problem”, in which
each of two players holds a sum of money of which she knows nothing about
except that it is either half or twice the amount held by the other player.
Players may be paradoxically tempted to exchange assets, since an exchange
fallaciously appears to always yield an expected value greater than whatever
is regarded as the player’s present assets. We argue that the fallacy is due
to egocentrically framing the problem as if the “amount I have” is definite,
albeit unspecified, and show that framing the paradox acentrically instead
eliminates the incentive to exchange assets. A possible psychological source
for the human disposition to frame problems in a way that inflates expected
gain is discussed. Finally, a heuristic meant to avert the source of the
fallacy is proposed. |