Consumers often encounter, and claim to care about, ethical information concerning the products they purchase. Across three studies, we investigate how the accessibility of this information impacts choice. When consumers must seek out product attribute information, the impact of ethical...

We experimentally investigate the determinants of overconfidence and test the hypothesis, advanced by Robert Trivers, that overconfidence serves to more effectively persuade or deceive others. After performing a cognitively challenging task, half of our subjects are informed about the...

People typically update their beliefs about their own abilities too little in response to feed-back, a phenomenon known as "conservatism", and some studies suggest that they overweight good relative to bad signals ("asymmetry"). We measure individual conservatism and asymmetry in three tasks...

Gender differences in voting patterns and political attitudes towards redistribution are well-documented. The experimental gender literature suggests several plausible behavioral explanations behind these differences, relating to gender differences in confidence concerning future relative income...

We investigate the effect of introducing information about peer portfolios in an experimental Arrow-Debreu economy. Confirming the prediction of a general equilibrium model with inequality averse preferences, we find that peer information leads to reduced variation in payoffs within peer groups....

Previous research has documented strong peer effects in risk taking, but little is known about how such social influences affect market outcomes. Since the consequences of social interactions are hard to isolate in financial data, we design an experimental asset market with multiple risky assets...

Does the wish to convince others lead people to persuade themselves about the moral and factual superiority of their position? We investigate this question in the context of two international debating competitions, where persuasion goals (pro or contra a motion) are randomly assigned to debaters...