Papers by christiane schwieren
Journal of behavioral and experimental economics, Aug 1, 2020
Depending on the context at hand, people's preference for receiving feedback might differ. Especi... more Depending on the context at hand, people's preference for receiving feedback might differ. Especially in allocation decisions that directly concern another individual, feedback from the affected person can have positive or negative value. We study such preferences in a laboratory experiment by eliciting the willingness-to-pay to receive or to avoid verbal feedback from subjects that were previously affected by an allocation decision. We find that most decision makers exhibit a positive willingness-to-pay for having control about whether feedback occurs or not. Specifically, decision makers that equally shared their endowment with the recipient revealed a positive willingness-to-pay for receiving, but not for avoiding feedback. By contrast, among decision makers that behaved selfishly, we identify both: subjects that were willing to pay for receiving and subjects that were willing to pay for avoiding feedback. The stated motivations indicate that curiosity, the desire to receive social approval and giving the recipient the chance to express his/her feelings are the main reasons for feedback acquisition, while shame and fear of negative feedback are the main reasons for avoidance. • We measure the willingness-to-pay to get (avoid) feedback in allocation situations • Both preferences for acquisition and avoidance of feedback are observed • Curiosity, social (dis)approval and emotion expression explain the pattern
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The Value of Verbal Feedback in Allocation Decisions [Online Appendix and Replication Package]
Depending on the context at hand, people's preference for receiving feedback might differ. Es... more Depending on the context at hand, people's preference for receiving feedback might differ. Especially in allocation decisions that directly concern another individual, feedback from the affected person can have positive or negative value. We study such preferences in a laboratory experiment by eliciting the willingness-to-pay to receive or to avoid verbal feedback from subjects that were previously affected by an allocation decision. We find that most decision makers exhibit a positive willingness-to-pay for having control about whether feedback occurs or not. Specifically, decision makers that shared their endowment with the recipient equally revealed a positive willingness-to-pay for receiving, but not for avoiding feedback. By contrast, among decision makers that behaved selfishly, we identify both: subjects that were willing to pay for receiving and subjects that were willing to pay for avoiding feedback. The stated motivations indicate that curiosity, the desire to receive social approval and giving the recipient the chance to express his/her feelings are the main reasons for feedback acquisition, while shame and fear of negative feedback are the main reasons for avoidance.
Ruperto Carola, Jul 17, 2017
The success of mitigating climate change depends on actions taken within the upcoming four decade... more The success of mitigating climate change depends on actions taken within the upcoming four decades. In Western societies, this timeframe coincides with a demographic shift increasing the age of the median voter and decision maker. The willingness to contribute to climate change mitigation may decrease with age since the bene…ts may lie beyond the life span whereas the costs are immediate. In several experimental studies, we investigate cognitive limitations and motivational factors in relation to climate change mitigation. In a …rst set of studies subjects are given the chance to invest up to 10e into the reduction of CO2 via the EU ETS. Contrary to theoretical considerations, we …nd evidence for a strong and positive e¤ect of age. Furthermore we show that social cues can be used to in ‡uence contributions. Moreover we demonstrate that independent of age most subjects are able to understand complex stock ‡ow problems if the mode of presentation is adequate. System thinking ability is not …rmly linked with a motivation to contribute to climate change mitigation. In a training study we show however that an increase of information about climate change can lead to a reduction of contributions.
The journal of the economics of ageing, Dec 1, 2015
The ''aging employee'' has recently become a hot topic in many fields of behavioral research. Wit... more The ''aging employee'' has recently become a hot topic in many fields of behavioral research. With the aim to determine the effects of different incentive schemes (piece rate, competition, choice between piece rate and competition, social or increased monetary incentives) on performance of young and older subjects, we look at behavior of a group of younger and older adults on a well-established real effort task. Based on the theory of Social Production Functions, we hypothesize age effects that depend on the incentive schemes used. We show that older adults are less productive than younger adults in all conditions, but that different incentive schemes exert similar influences on productivity in both age groups. While we do not find a significant age difference in competitiveness and reject the age-related predictions of the Social Production Functions Theory, we replicate the gender difference in competitiveness found in the literature. Social incentives in men have an at least as strong or even stronger effect on performance than increased monetary incentives. Women do not show an increase in performance with social incentives.
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, Mar 1, 2018
The use of a non-clinical sample with self-reported depressive symptoms limits the generalizabili... more The use of a non-clinical sample with self-reported depressive symptoms limits the generalizability of our findings to a clinical population. Future research would benefit from the use of a larger sample with patients suffering from clinical depression. The findings support the notion that negative evaluation processes in depressed individuals might be linked with their tendency to generate intractable conflicts between self-set inappropriate high goals and their own capacities to perform. However, the findings need to be confirmed in clinical samples to draw conclusions about the role of goal setting in negative evaluation processes in depression.
Economics Letters, Dec 1, 2012
We analyze the gender wage gap in experimental markets. Women receive but do not request signific... more We analyze the gender wage gap in experimental markets. Women receive but do not request significantly lower wages than men. This hurts firms, as women react with low effort. Additionally, women tend to react differently than men to wage levels.
Frontiers in Psychology, Jan 29, 2016
Chronic stress is a public health problem that affects a significant part of the population. Whil... more Chronic stress is a public health problem that affects a significant part of the population. While the physiological damage it causes is under ongoing scrutiny, its behavioral effects have been overlooked. This is one of the first studies to examine the relation between chronic stress and decision-making, using a standard lottery paradigm. We measured risk taking in the gain domain through binary choices between financially incentivized lotteries. We then measured self-reported chronic stress with the Trier Inventory for the Assessment of Chronic Stress (TICS). We additionally collected hair samples in a subsample of volunteers, in order to quantify accumulation of the stress hormone cortisol. We discovered a significant positive, though modest, correlation between self-reported chronic stress and risk taking that is stronger for women than for men. This confirms part of the findings in acute stress research that show a connection between higher stress and increased risk taking. However, unlike the biologically-based results from acute stress research, we did not identify a significant relation between hair cortisol and behavior. In line with previous literature, we found a clear gender difference in risk taking and self-reports: women generally take less risk and report slightly higher stress levels than men. We conclude that perceived chronic stress can impact behavior in risky situations.
Journal of Economic Psychology, Oct 1, 2017
Competition is ubiquitous in economic life. Yet, negative consequences of competitive environment... more Competition is ubiquitous in economic life. Yet, negative consequences of competitive environments have been reported and everyday experience suggests that competitive situations can be very stressful. It is, however, an open question whether or not economic competitions in the laboratory indeed elicit physiological stress reactions. Our study examined the subjectively perceived stress and the physiological changes induced by a well-established economic laboratory competition paradigm (first used in Niederle and Vesterlund 2007) in a mixed-gender sample of 105 healthy participants. A mental arithmetic task was performed first under a piece rate (i.e., non-competitive) payment scheme and afterwards under a tournament condition. In a third round, participants decided how to be paid (i.e., piece rate or tournament). Our results indicate that compared to a control group, which performed only the non-competitive condition, the competitive game condition indeed elicited subjective and physiological reactions that are indicative of mild stress. Furthermore, reactions that are thought to reflect an active coping style were related to the selfselection into competition in the third round of the game. We speculate that real-life economic competitions might be even stronger stressors and the way how people cope with this kind of stress might be related to competitiveness in real-life economic contexts.
Let the team fix it? - Performance and mood of depressed workers and coworkers in different work contexts [Research data]
Depression in the workplace is a significant factor for reduced personal well-being and productiv... more Depression in the workplace is a significant factor for reduced personal well-being and productivity. Consequently, this has negative effects on the economic success of the companies in which depressed people are employed. In addition, the economy has to deal with the significant burden of this illness on the health system. In this paper, we investigated how different working contexts —working in a group or individually—influenced depressed individuals towards higher or lower well-being and productivity. We examined this using a laboratory experiment. In this setting, we were also able to analyze how, in turn, a depressive individual impacted the productivity and affective situation of their workgroup, reflecting the company perspective. The experimental design mimicked the very basic processes of a workplace in a stylized way. We used two distinct samples: subclinically and clinically depressed, both working in a group with healthy controls. As expected, we found generally lower performance in the clinically depressed sample, but in the subclinically depressed sample, we only found this in the individual work context. In contrast to our expectations, the performance of subclinically depressed individuals working in groups with healthy controls was even higher than that of healthy controls in homogenously healthy groups. The performance of the entire group with a depressed member was lower for the sample with clinically manifested depression, while the performance of groups with a subclinically depressed participant was significantly higher than the performance of homogeneously non-depressed control groups. We discuss our results with a focus on the design of workplaces to both re-integrate clinically depressed employees and prevent subclinically depressed employees from developing major depression.
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, May 1, 2020
Using coordination games, we study whether social norm perception differs between inexperienced a... more Using coordination games, we study whether social norm perception differs between inexperienced and experienced participants in economic laboratory experiments. We find substantial differences between the two groups, both regarding injunctive and descriptive social norms in the context of participation in lab experiments. By contrast, social norm perception for the context of daily life does not differ between the two groups. We therefore conclude that learning through experience is more important than selection effects for understanding differences between the two groups. We also conduct exploratory analyses on the relation between lab and field norms and find that behaving unsocial in an experiment is considered substantially more appropriate than in daily life. This appears inconsistent with the hypothesis that social preferences measured in lab experiments are inflated and indicates a distinction between revealed social preferences as measured commonly and the elicitation of normatively appropriate behavior. • Social norm perception is compared between inexperienced and experienced lab participants • Substantial differences are observed in lab norms, but not in field norms • The evidence suggests that learning is more important than selection-effects
German Economic Review, Feb 1, 2016
Many real-world decisions are made by individuals as representatives of groups. Most research, ho... more Many real-world decisions are made by individuals as representatives of groups. Most research, however, studies either individuals or groups as decision-makers. This paper explores whether there is a general difference between a decision made as an individual and as a representative of a group in the context of a public good game. We conducted a series of experiments to test this question and to understand mechanisms contributing to potential differences. We found that representatives contributed less than individuals when they could not communicate with their constituency. However, when they could discuss their strategy before playing, they contributed at least as much as individual decision-makers. Furthermore, when they could justify their decision after playing, they contributed even more than individual decision-makers. We discuss potential reasons for this and directions for future research.
Theory and Decision, May 15, 2007
The introduction of the euro gave a unique opportunity to empirically disentangle two components ... more The introduction of the euro gave a unique opportunity to empirically disentangle two components of utility: intrinsic value, a rational component central in economics, and the numerosity effect (going by numbers while ignoring units), a descriptive and irrational component central in prospect theory and underlying the money illusion. We measured relative risk aversion in Belgium before and after the introduction of the euro, and could consider changes in intrinsic value while keeping numbers constant, and changes in numbers while keeping intrinsic value constant. Intrinsic value significantly affected risk aversion, and the numerosity effect did not. Our study is the first to confirm the classical hypothesis of increasing relative risk aversion while avoiding irrational distortions due to the numerosity effect.
Predicting behavior across games - can personality help?
PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2011
Meteor Research Memorandum, 2003
or visit the DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are ... more or visit the DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers. Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal. If the publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the "Taverne" license above, please follow below link for the End User
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Dec 3, 2010
In an aging society, it becomes more and more important to understand how aging affects decision ... more In an aging society, it becomes more and more important to understand how aging affects decision making. Older adults have to face many situations that require consequential financial decisions. In the present study, we examined the effects of aging on decisions in two domains of uncertainty: risk and ambiguity. For this purpose, a group of young and older adults played a card game which was composed of risky and ambiguous conditions. In the risk condition, participants knew the probabilities to win or loose the game (i.e. full information), whereas in the ambiguous condition, these probabilities were unknown (thus, there was lack of information). When confronted with risky decisions, the behaviour of older and young adults (measured by the number of times participants chose a gamble instead of a sure amount of money) did not differ. In contrast, under ambiguity, there were significant age-effects in decision making: older people were less ambiguity-averse than young subjects. We conclude that there exist differences in uncertaintyprocessing between young and older adults, and discuss possible explanations of these differences.
Cognition & Emotion, Dec 4, 2014
Previous studies on attentional biases often show contradictory results. This suggests that impor... more Previous studies on attentional biases often show contradictory results. This suggests that important moderating variables have been neglected so far. We suggest that (1) control over potential consequences and (2) satisfaction with the current status are important factors that need to be considered. We explored the influence of these variables using a colour classification task, where colours are associated with financial gains and losses. Data were analysed with hierarchical logistic regression models and with stochastic diffusion models. The latter approach has the special advantage that it allows separating perceptual and judgemental biases. Results show an overall positive judgemental bias. In the absence of control, this positivity bias increases with the amount of money that has been gained, whereas the opposite pattern is present when dangers can be controlled. In the second experiment, no general feedback was given, which led to an increasing negativity bias. Results are discussed within an action theoretic framework.
Rationality and self-interest as economic-exchange strategy in borderline personality disorder: Game theory, social preferences, and interpersonal behavior
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, Dec 1, 2016
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized by severe and persistent impairments in in... more Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized by severe and persistent impairments in interpersonal functioning. Given the complexity of social interactions, studying the interactive behavior of BPD patients is challenging. One way to implement both tight experimental control and realistic, externally valid settings is to use game-theoretical experiments. This review discusses findings from economic exchange studies in BPD against the background of game-theoretical literature. BPD patients do not seem to derive utility from mutual cooperation with others and appear not to "forgive" a partner's unfairness. By pursuing a strategy of negative reciprocity, BPD patients seem to act mostly "rationally" and in their own self-interest. Their "grim trigger strategy" resembles the theoretical ideal of the rational and self-interested agent homo economicus. Finally, we summarize how research findings from economics and clinical psychiatry may be mutually enriching and propose new research ideas in this fascinating field.
Frontiers in Psychology, May 23, 2022
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Papers by christiane schwieren