nep-neu New Economics Papers
on Neuroeconomics
Issue of 2015‒08‒25
six papers chosen by
  1. Cognitive ability and the effect of strategic uncertainty By Nobuyuki Hanaki; Nicolas Jacquemet; Stéphane Luchini; Adam Zylbersztejn
  2. Limited Self-Control, Obesity and the Loss of Happiness By Alois Stutzer; Armando N. Meier
  3. Do Negative Emotions Explain Punishment in Power-to-Take Game Experiments? By Fabio Galeotti
  4. Trouble Setting Your Savings Goals? The Moderating Effect of Religious Belief on Goal Pursuit By Jamel Khenfer; Aaron Kay; Elyette Roux; Eric Tafani
  5. Personality and Smoking: Individual-Participant Meta-Analysis of 9 Cohort Studies By Christian Hakulinen; Mirka Hintsanen; Marcus R. Munafò; Marianna Virtanen; Mika Kivimäki; G. David Batty; Markus Jokela
  6. The Role of Goals and Feedback in Incentivizing Performance By Zafer; Emin
  1. By: Nobuyuki Hanaki (AMSE - Aix-Marseille School of Economics - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) - Ecole Centrale Marseille (ECM) - AMU - Aix-Marseille Université); Nicolas Jacquemet (GATE - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - CNRS - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines, PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC)); Stéphane Luchini (AMSE - Aix-Marseille School of Economics - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) - Ecole Centrale Marseille (ECM) - AMU - Aix-Marseille Université); Adam Zylbersztejn (GATE - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - CNRS - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines)
    Abstract: How is one's cognitive ability related to the way one responds to strategic uncertainty? We address this question by conducting a set of experiments in simple 2 × 2 dominance solvable coordination games. Our experiments involve two main treatments: one in which two human subjects interact, and another in which one human subject interacts with a computer program whose behavior is known. By making the behavior of the computer perfectly predictable, the latter treatment eliminates strategic uncertainty. We find that subjects with higher cognitive abilities are more sensitive to strategic uncertainty than those with lower cognitive abilities.
    Date: 2014–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-01095897&r=neu
  2. By: Alois Stutzer; Armando N. Meier
    Abstract: Is obesity the consequence of an optimally chosen lifestyle or do people consume too much relative to their long-term preferences? The latter perspective accepts that people might face self-control problems when exposed to the immediate gratification from food. We exploit unique survey data for Switzerland in multinomial logit and ordered probit regressions to study i) the covariates of obesity including indicators of self-control, and ii) the consequences of obesity on the subjective well-being of people with limited willpower. Our main finding is that obesity decreases the well-being of individuals who report having limited self-control, but not otherwise.
    Keywords: obesity; revealed preference; self-control problem; subjective well-being
    JEL: D12 D91 I12 I31
    Date: 2015–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cra:wpaper:2015-14&r=neu
  3. By: Fabio Galeotti (GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - CNRS - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Etienne - PRES Université de Lyon - ENS Lyon - École normale supérieure - Lyon)
    Abstract: An important branch of economic research on emotions has used power-to-take game experiments to study the impact of negative emotions, such as anger, irritation and contempt, on the decision to punish. We investigate experimentally the role that the specific punishment technology adopted plays in this context, and test to what extent punishing behavior can be truly attributed to negative emotions. We find that a large part (around 70%) of the punishment behavior observed in previous PTTG studies is explained by the technology of punishment adopted instead of negative emotions. Once this effect is removed, negative emotions do still play an important role, but the efficiency costs associated to them are much smaller.
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01128873&r=neu
  4. By: Jamel Khenfer (CERGAM - Centre d'Études et de Recherche en Gestion d'Aix-Marseille - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille 3 - AMU IAE - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Aix-en-Provence - AMU - Aix-Marseille Université - AMU - Aix-Marseille Université, AMU IAE - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Aix-en-Provence - AMU - Aix-Marseille Université); Aaron Kay (Duke University (Durham, USA)); Elyette Roux (CERGAM - Centre d'Études et de Recherche en Gestion d'Aix-Marseille - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille 3 - AMU IAE - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Aix-en-Provence - AMU - Aix-Marseille Université - AMU - Aix-Marseille Université, AMU IAE - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Aix-en-Provence - AMU - Aix-Marseille Université); Eric Tafani (CERGAM - Centre d'Études et de Recherche en Gestion d'Aix-Marseille - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille 3 - AMU IAE - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Aix-en-Provence - AMU - Aix-Marseille Université - AMU - Aix-Marseille Université, AMU IAE - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Aix-en-Provence - AMU - Aix-Marseille Université)
    Abstract: This research examines if, in the context of savings goals, the usual decrement in motivation that is observed when a goal is set with implementation concreteness, at its early stages, will dissipate when people are reminded of divine control.
    Date: 2014–07–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01079649&r=neu
  5. By: Christian Hakulinen; Mirka Hintsanen; Marcus R. Munafò; Marianna Virtanen; Mika Kivimäki; G. David Batty; Markus Jokela
    Abstract: Aims: To investigate cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between personality and smoking, and test whether sociodemographic factors modify these associations.Design: Cross-sectional and longitudinal individual-participant meta-analysis. Setting: Nine cohort studies from Australia, Germany, UK and US. Participants: A total of 79,757 men and women (mean age = 51 years). Measurements: Personality traits of the Five-Factor Model (extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience) were used as exposures. Outcomes were current smoking status (current smoker, ex-smoker, and never smoker), smoking initiation, smoking relapse, and smoking cessation. Associations between personality and smoking were modeled using logistic and multinomial logistic regression, and study-specific findings were combined using random-effect meta-analysis. Findings: Current smoking was associated with higher extraversion (odds ratio per 1 standard deviation increase in the score: 1.16; 95% confidence interval: 1.08-1.24), higher neuroticism (1.19; 1.13-1.26), and lower conscientiousness (0.88; 0.83-0.94). Among nonsmokers, smoking initiation during the follow-up period was prospectively predicted by higher extraversion (1.22; 1.04-1.43) and lower conscientiousness (0.80; 0.68-0.93), whereas higher neuroticism (1.16; 1.04-1.30) predicted smoking relapse among ex-smokers. Among smokers, smoking cessation was negatively associated with neuroticism (0.91; 0.87-0.96). Sociodemographic variables did not appear to modify the associations between personality and smoking. Conclusions: Adult smokers have higher extraversion, higher neuroticism and lower conscientiousness personality scores than non-smokers. Initiation into smoking is positively associated with higher extraversion and lower conscientiousness, while relapse to smoking among ex-smokers is association with higher neuroticism.
    Keywords: Cohort studies, five-factor mode, individual-participant meta-analysis, personality,smoking
    Date: 2015
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp783&r=neu
  6. By: Zafer; Emin (Department of Management, Ipek University)
    Abstract: In this paper, we experimentally investigate how goal setting and feedback policies affect work performance. In particular, we study the effects of (i) absolute performance feedback, (ii) self-specified goals and (iii) exogenous goals and relative performance feedback. Our results show that the average performance of the subjects who are provided self-performance feedback is 11% lower than the ones who get no feedback. Moreover, setting a non-binding personal goal does not affect performance. Finally, assigning an exogenous goal and providing relative performance feedback decreases performance by 8%. We discuss the insights our findings offer for the optimal design of goal setting and feedback mechanisms.
    Keywords: Feedback, Goal, Relative Performance, Piece-rate, Motivation
    JEL: M50
    Date: 2015–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipk:wpaper:1506&r=neu
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