nep-neu New Economics Papers
on Neuroeconomics
Issue of 2016‒09‒18
five papers chosen by



  1. Solution-oriented versus Novelty-oriented Leadership Instructions: Cognitive Effect on Creative Ideation By Hicham Ezzat; Marine Agogué; Pascal Le Masson; Benoit Weil
  2. Leadership-driven Ideation: The Cognitive Effects of Directive Feedbacks on Creativity By Hicham Ezzat; Marine Agogué; Mathieu Cassotti; Pascal Le Masson; Benoit Weil
  3. Impulsive Behavior in Competition: Testing Theories of Overbidding in Rent-Seeking Contests By Sheremeta, Roman
  4. Emotional Judges and Unlucky Juveniles By Ozkan Eren; Naci Mocan
  5. The impact of long-run macroeconomic experiences on personality By Vellekoop, Nathanaël

  1. By: Hicham Ezzat (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris - PSL - PSL Research University - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Marine Agogué (HEC Montréal - HEC MONTRÉAL); Pascal Le Masson (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris - PSL - PSL Research University - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Benoit Weil (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris - PSL - PSL Research University - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
    Abstract: The generation of novel ideas is critical to any innovative endeavor. However, one of the key obstacles to creativity is known as the fixation effect, which is the cognitive effect that constrains the generation of novel ideas due to the spontaneous activation of existing knowledge and solutions in individuals’ mind. Expert leaders have been considered to play an important role in overcoming these biases using diverse tools. One of these principal instruments is task instruction. Our hypothesis is that leaders’ instructions can have significant effects on followers’ ideation capacity. We investigated the effect of an instruction given by a leader to his team to generate as many original ideas to a particular creative task, either using solution or novelty-oriented approaches. Results confirmed that solution-oriented instructions activated knowledge bases in fixation, while solution-oriented instructions inhibited these knowledge bases. These results give us new sights into novel models of “less-expert” creative leadership.
    Keywords: Leadership, Creativity, Innovation, Functional Fixedness, Instructions
    Date: 2016–06–27
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01301511&r=neu
  2. By: Hicham Ezzat (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris - PSL - PSL Research University - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Marine Agogué (HEC Montréal - HEC MONTRÉAL); Mathieu Cassotti (LaPsyDE - Laboratoire de Psychologie du Développement et de l'Education de l'enfant - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Basse-Normandie - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UPD5 - Université Paris Descartes - Paris 5, CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris - PSL - PSL Research University - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Pascal Le Masson (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris - PSL - PSL Research University - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Benoit Weil (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris - PSL - PSL Research University - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
    Abstract: Leadership and creativity have usually been viewed as antagonist concepts, compromised between two contradictory variables: control and freedom. There is growing evidence that too much leadership control could kill subordinates’ creativity, while in contrary too much freedom could lead them to chaos and disorder. In the past decades, countless researches suggested that in order for creativity to emerge, leaders should grant more freedom and autonomy to their followers. Our hypothesis is that leaders could foster subordinates’ creative ideation capacities by controlling their ideation processes through directive feedbacks. In this study, we explored the influence of directive feedbacks interactively given by a leader at each idea generated by his/her subordinate, throughout a classical creative problem-solving task done online via a distant text conversation. The task consisted of generating as many original solutions as possible that allows that a hen’s egg dropped from a height of ten meters does not break. Results confirmed that leaders’ directive feedbacks were able to drive and guide subordinates’ ideation paths in two distinctive directions, according to leaders’ domain-relevant knowledge and vision for creativity.
    Keywords: Leadership, Creativity, Ideation, Functional Fixedness, Directive Feedback
    Date: 2016–06–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01298791&r=neu
  3. By: Sheremeta, Roman
    Abstract: Researchers have proposed various theories to explain overbidding in rent-seeking contents, including mistakes, systematic biases, the utility of winning, and relative payoff maximization. Through an eight-part experiment, we test and find significant support for the existing theories. Also, we discover some new explanations based on cognitive ability and impulsive behavior. Out of all explanations examined, we find that impulsivity is the most important factor explaining overbidding in contests.
    Keywords: rent-seeking, contest, competition, impulsive behavior, experiments
    JEL: C72 C91 D01 D72
    Date: 2016–09–14
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:73731&r=neu
  4. By: Ozkan Eren; Naci Mocan
    Abstract: Employing the universe of juvenile court decisions in a U.S. state between 1996 and 2012, we analyze the effects of emotional shocks associated with unexpected outcomes of football games played by a prominent college team in the state. We investigate the behavior of judges, the conduct of whom should, by law, be free of personal biases and emotions. We find that unexpected losses increase disposition (sentence) lengths assigned by judges during the week following the game. Unexpected wins, or losses that were expected to be close contests ex-ante, have no impact. The effects of these emotional shocks are asymmetrically borne by black defendants. We present evidence that the results are not influenced by defendant or attorney behavior or by defendants’ economic background. Importantly, the results are driven by judges who have received their bachelor’s degrees from the university with which the football team is affiliated. Different falsification tests and a number of auxiliary analyses demonstrate the robustness of the findings. These results provide evidence for the impact of emotions in one domain on a behavior in a completely unrelated domain among a uniformly highly-educated group of individuals (judges), with decisions involving high stakes (sentence lengths). They also point to the existence of a subtle and previously-unnoticed capricious application of sentencing.
    JEL: D02 D03 J15 J71 K4 K41
    Date: 2016–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22611&r=neu
  5. By: Vellekoop, Nathanaël
    Abstract: Using two datasets containing demographically representative samples of the Dutch population, I study how lifetime experiences of aggregate labor market conditions affect personality. Three sets of findings are reported. First, experienced aggregate unemployment is negatively correlated with the levels of all Big Five personality traits, except for conscientiousness (no significant correlation). Second, in panel data models with individual fixed effects I find that changes in experienced aggregate unemployment cause changes in emotional stability and agreeableness for men, and conscientiousness for women. The correlation is positive, and effects are economically large. Thirdly, I report suggestive evidence that the main driver is experienced aggregate unemployment, instead of other macroeconomic variables as experienced GDP, stock market returns or inflation. Taken together, these findings suggest that changes in Big Five personality traits are systematically related to experienced aggregate labor market conditions.
    Keywords: personality traits,Big Five,locus of control,labor market,unemployment
    JEL: D01 D12 E23 E32
    Date: 2016
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:safewp:142&r=neu

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