In a model with social influence, Becker (1991) offers an explanation for why popular restaurants with excess demand do not raise their prices. He also offers an explanation for why such restaurants do not increase supply but admits his explanation may be weak. Becker does not provide a formal...

We investigate experimentally the effect of consultation (unincentivized advice) on choices under risk in an incentivized investment task. We compare consultation to two benchmark treatments: one with isolated individual choices, and a second with group choice after communication. Our benchmark...

Agent-based models are flexible analytical tools suitable for exploring and understanding complex systems such as tax compliance and evasion. The agent-based model created in this research builds upon two other agent-based models of tax evasion, the Korobow, Johnson, and Axtell (2007) and Hokamp...

Social influence is an important component of contemporary conceptualizations of masculinity in the U.S. Men who fail to achieve masculinity by maintaining social influence in the presence of other men may be at risk of stigmatization. As such, men should be especially likely to exhibit a stress...

Over the past 50 years, the expectation states research program has generated a set of interrelated theories to explain the relation between performance expectations and social influence. Yet while the relationship between performance expectations and social influence is now axiomatic, the...

Pluralistic ignorance, a well-documented socio-psychological conformity phenomenon, involves discrepancies between private attitude and public opinion in certain social contexts. However, continuous opinion dynamics models based on a bounded confidence assumption fail to accurately model...

This paper experimentally investigates how individual preferences, through unrestricted deliberation, are aggregated into a group decision in two contexts: reciprocating gifts and choosing between lotteries. In both contexts, we find that median group members have a significant impact on the...

This paper presents an experimental investigation of persuasion bias, a form of bounded rationality whereby agents communicating through a social network are unable to account for repetitions in the information they receive. We find that, after repeated communication within a social network,...

We compare social preference and social norm based explanations for peer effects in a three-person gift-exchange game experiment. In the experiment a principal pays a wage to each of two agents, who then make effort choices sequentially. In our baseline treatment we observe that the second...

Despite the recognized influence of word-of-mouth (WOM) in the consumer decision making process, research investigating how listeners of WOM use this communication is limited. In this paper, the authors present a model which integrates factors influencing listeners' usage of WOM (WOMU) and the...