Risk taking and information aggregation in groups

We report a controlled laboratory experiment examining risk-taking and information aggregation in groups facing a common risk. The experiment allows us to examine how subjects respond to new information, in the form of both privately observed signals and signals reported from others. We find that a...

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Main Authors: Bougheas, Spiros, Nieboer, Jeroen, Sefton, Martin
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29801/
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author Bougheas, Spiros
Nieboer, Jeroen
Sefton, Martin
author_facet Bougheas, Spiros
Nieboer, Jeroen
Sefton, Martin
author_sort Bougheas, Spiros
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description We report a controlled laboratory experiment examining risk-taking and information aggregation in groups facing a common risk. The experiment allows us to examine how subjects respond to new information, in the form of both privately observed signals and signals reported from others. We find that a considerable number of subjects exhibit ‘reverse confirmation bias’: they place less weight on information from others that agrees with their private signal and more weight on conflicting information. We also find a striking degree of consensus when subjects make decisions on behalf of the group under a random dictatorship procedure. Reverse confirmation bias and the incidence of consensus are considerably reduced when group members can share signals but not communicate.
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publishDate 2015
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spelling nottingham-298012020-05-04T17:15:26Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29801/ Risk taking and information aggregation in groups Bougheas, Spiros Nieboer, Jeroen Sefton, Martin We report a controlled laboratory experiment examining risk-taking and information aggregation in groups facing a common risk. The experiment allows us to examine how subjects respond to new information, in the form of both privately observed signals and signals reported from others. We find that a considerable number of subjects exhibit ‘reverse confirmation bias’: they place less weight on information from others that agrees with their private signal and more weight on conflicting information. We also find a striking degree of consensus when subjects make decisions on behalf of the group under a random dictatorship procedure. Reverse confirmation bias and the incidence of consensus are considerably reduced when group members can share signals but not communicate. Elsevier 2015-08-08 Article PeerReviewed Bougheas, Spiros, Nieboer, Jeroen and Sefton, Martin (2015) Risk taking and information aggregation in groups. Journal of Economic Psychology, 51 . pp. 34-47. ISSN 0167-4870 Group Behavior Teams Decision Making Risk Experiment http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487015000999 doi:10.1016/j.joep.2015.08.001 doi:10.1016/j.joep.2015.08.001
spellingShingle Group Behavior
Teams
Decision Making
Risk
Experiment
Bougheas, Spiros
Nieboer, Jeroen
Sefton, Martin
Risk taking and information aggregation in groups
title Risk taking and information aggregation in groups
title_full Risk taking and information aggregation in groups
title_fullStr Risk taking and information aggregation in groups
title_full_unstemmed Risk taking and information aggregation in groups
title_short Risk taking and information aggregation in groups
title_sort risk taking and information aggregation in groups
topic Group Behavior
Teams
Decision Making
Risk
Experiment
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29801/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29801/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29801/