The paper presents a complete information model of bidding in second price sealed-bid and ascending-bid (English) auctions, in which potential buyers know the unit valuation of other bidders and may spitefully prefer that their rivals earn a lower surplus. Bidders with spiteful preferences...

We report laboratory experiments that use new, visually oriented software to explore the dynamics of 3 x 3 games with intransitive best responses. Each moment, each player is matched against the entire population, here 8 human subjects. A "heat map" offers instantaneous feedback on current...