In a laboratory experiment, we use an extensive form two person trust game to examine the hypothesis that human subjects have a preconscious friend-or-foe (FOF) mental mechanism for evaluating the intentions of another person. Instructions are used to weakly prime the FOF state: instead of the...

Economists and biologists have long grappled with the apparent contradiction of altruism in a naturally-selected world. Standard economic models are built upon an assumption of material self-interest where agents maximize individual outcomes without regard for the effects on others. This paper...

"Beauty contests" are well-studied, dominance-solvable games that generate two interesting results. First, most behavior does not conform to the unique Nash equilibrium. Second, there is considerable unexplained heterogeneity in behavior. In this work, we evaluate the relationship between beauty...

There is a schism within economics between the neoclassical and behavioral schools. A primary cause of the behavioral ascent is the experimental evidence of deviations between actual behavior and the neoclassical prediction of behavior. While behavioral scholars have documented these...

"Beauty contests" are well-studied, dominance-solvable games that generate two interesting results. First, most behavior does not conform to the unique Nash equilibrium. Second, there is considerable unexplained heterogeneity in behavior. In this work, we explore the relationship between beauty...