This paper examines how beliefs and preferences drive identity-conforming consumption or investments. We introduce a theory that explains how identity distorts individuals' beliefs about potential outcomes and imposes psychic costs on benefiting from identity-incongruent sources. We substantiate...

Does social recognition motivate prosocial individuals? We run large-scale experiments among members of Italy’s main blood donors association, testing social recognition both through social media and peer groups. We experimentally disentangle visibility concerns and peer comparisons, and we...

We test experimentally an explanation of over and under confidence as motivated by (perhaps unconscious) strategic concerns, and find compelling evidence supporting this hypothesis in the behavior of participants who send and respond to others' statements of confidence about how well they have...

Intelligence and personality significantly affect social outcomes of individuals. We study how and why these traits affect the outcome of groups, looking specifically at how these characteristics operate in repeated interactions providing opportunity for profitable cooperation. Our experimental...

A large literature in behavioral economics has emphasized in the last decades the role of individual differences in social preferences (such as trust and altruism) and in influencing behavior in strategic environments. Here we emphasize the role of attention and working memory, and show that...

We investigate in a laboratory setting whether revealing information on intelligence affects behavior in games with repeated interactions. In our experimental design we communicate information on the cognitive ability of both players. We use three stage games: Prisoners’ Dilemma (PD) and two...

A large literature in behavioral economics has emphasized in the last decades the role of individual differences in social preferences (such as trust and altruism) and in influencing behavior in strategic environments. Here we emphasize the role of attention and working memory, and show that...

We investigate in a laboratory setting whether revealing information on intelligence affects behavior in games with repeated interactions. In our experimental design we communicate information on the cognitive ability of both players. We use three stage games: Prisoners’ Dilemma (PD) and two...

Rational choice theories assume that voters accurately assess the outcomes of policies. However, many important policies—such as regulating prices and introducing Pigouvian taxation—yield outcomes through indirect or equilibrium effects that may differ from their direct effects. Citizens may...