Behavioural Theories:
Behavioural Economics and
Organizational Studies
Julita Vassileva
Social Computing Class 2009
Social Computing Class 2009
Behavioural Economics
Behavioural Economics
• Based on
Based on
How do we make choices?
How do we make choices?
• “The cycle of relativity”: We are always looking at the things
y y y g g
around us in relation to others
• Welcome
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The Fallacy of Supply and Demand
The Fallacy of Supply and Demand
• We purchase items based on value, quality or availability,
sometimes – all three
sometimes all three
• The methods of appointing a value to an object with no
previous value is subject to irrational pricing
– E.g. a fancy ad with “equally” precious items
– Placing “equally” precious items in a luxury store window.
• Once we buy a product at a certain price, we become
y p p ,
"anchored" to that price
• The theory of supply and demand challenged:
– demand, the determinant of market prices, can be easily manipulated
– supply and demand are dependent on each other (manufacturer's
suggested retail prices affect consumers' willingness to pay)
– relationships between supply and demand are based on memory
rather than on preferences
The Effect of Expectations
• Can previous knowledge change an actual sensory experience?
• Experiment 1 with two beers: Budweiser and the MIT Brew, (beer
containing balsamic vinegar).
– If people didn’t know what they were drinking in advance, they liked the
MIT Brew
– If they were told in advance, they liked Budweiser better.
– If they were told after they reported their liking/disliking, they stuck to
their choice
their choice
• Experiment 2 with female Asian students doing math test
• Experiment 3 with organic foods
• Higher price sets higher expectations – curious medical studies,
generic and brand‐name drugs (the power of placebo)
• Outcome: Expectations shape stereotypes –
O t E t ti h t t we see what we
h t
want to see.
The High Price of Ownership
The High Price of Ownership
• Endowment effect: we overvalue what we have
• Inconsistent with standard economic theory which asserts
y
that a person's willingness to pay for a good should be equal
to their willingness to accept compensation to be deprived of
the good
the good.
• Duke team basketball ticket raffle experiment
– Those who didn’t win a ticket were willing to pay $170 on average
– Those who won a ticket would sell it for $2,400 on average (14 times
higher value!).
• Reasons:
– ownership is such a big part of our society that we tend to focus on
what we may lose rather than on what we may gain.
– the connection we feel to the things we own makes it difficult for us to
the connection we feel to the things we own makes it difficult for us to
dispose of them.
– we assume that people will see the transaction through our eyes.
The Cost of FREE!
The Cost of FREE!
• Humans react to the word FREE! and zero without rationalizing
their choices
their choices.
• Experiment1 : students offered to choose between two
chocolates: 1) a 15c Lindt truffle (regular bulk price 30c) and a 1c Hershey
and 2) a 14c Lindt truffle and a free Hershey
Which was the preferred choice in each case?
Experiment 2: A free $10 Amazon certificate and a $20 certificate for seven
p $ $
dollars. Which one would you pick (don’t think too much )?
• There is something “magical” about “FREE!” – no chance of loss
• Amazon’s “free shipping” deal in France
A ’ “f hi i ” d l i F
• But what is the real cost of “Free” stuff?
– Your
Your time? Missing on a better option? Forgetting your priorities? Having
time? Missing on a better option? Forgetting your priorities? Having
an unwanted item which takes space...
• Use in marketing –Gillette razors , electric toothbrushes …
Procrastination and Self‐Control
Procrastination and Self Control
• Two states in which people make judgments
– Cool
Cool state
state – rational, long
rational long‐term
term goals, plans
goals plans
– Hot state – irrational, seeking immediate pleasure or reward
– Procrastination = putting off long‐term goals for immediate gratification
• University experience:
– I promise to submit Assignment 1 on ….. (penalty 1% for each day after)
– 3 classes: 1) students pick deadlines, 2) no deadlines, 3) prof sets deadlines
) p , ) , )p
– Which class did the best?
• With proper motivations such as deadlines and penalties, people
are more willing to meet those deadlines or long‐term goals
illi t t th d dli l t l
• Healthcare experience:
– When
When patients have to pay a penalty for not showing up for appointment,
patients have to pay a penalty for not showing up for appointment,
they tend to keep their appointments.
– But one has to be careful with penalties – example with a day care
Social Norms: We are happy to do
things, but not when we are paid
• Social norms govern
– friendly reciprocation ‐ requests with instant payback not required
– market norms—which account for wages, prices, rents, cost benefits,
and repayment being essential.
• Combining the two creates troubling situations, e.g. paying
your mother in law for her lovely Thanksgiving dinner
– Ask a passerby to help you move a couch, for free and for $2.
Ask a passerby to help you move a couch for free and for $2
– Daycare example again
• When social norm and market norm collide – the social norm
goes away for a long time.
– What is the best way to motivate people to do something? Relying on
social norm or market norm ?
– It depends on what you are asking them to do
– Money is often the most expensive way to motivate people
On happiness
On happiness
• Dan
Dan Gilbert
Gilbert’ss TED talk (20 min)
TED talk (20 min)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=‐
7822696446273926158#
And for completeness – three
slides on classical economics
• Prisoner
Prisoner'ss dilemma
dilemma
• Tragedy of commons
• Repeated prisoner’s dilemma
d i ’ dil
Prisoner’ss dilemma
Prisoner dilemma
Prisoner B chooses Prisoner B chooses
“defect” (betray) “cooperate “ (not
betray)
• But sometimes it is really hard to find dissenting views
– Original minds are precious, in groups peer pressure and authority
Original minds are precious in groups peer pressure and authority interfere
Social forces for conformism
Social forces for conformism
• People can be influenced easily:
eop e ca be ue ced eas y:
– Solomon Asch’s experiment
– “What’s up in the sky?”
– Queuing for nothing
• John Maynard Keynes:
– “Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for
reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed
unconventionally .
unconventionally”.
• Cascades result from people valuing more the
p
public information than their private information
p
Information cascades
Information cascades
• The wooden plank roads (Canada, ca. 1840) cascade
swept NY, mid‐Atlantic states, the Midwest.
• Mechanism of an information cascade
– The
The two restaurants model (Bikhchandani, Hirschleifer)
two restaurants model (Bikhchandani Hirschleifer)
– People’s decisions are not made simultaneously, but in
sequence
– There is no peer‐pressure, conformity, or mindless trend‐
There is no peer pressure conformity or mindless trend
following, they believe that what they choose is better.
– William Sellers orchestrated a cascade that lead to the
adoption to his screw (became the standard)
adoption to his screw (became the standard).
– The Telecom bubble in the late 1990ies was a cascade
– The house‐market bubble in the US recently….
Starters / breakers of cascades
Starters / breakers of cascades
• Overconfident
Overconfident people
people – who value their own
who value their own
private information more than the public one
– People are in general overconfident
People are in general overconfident
– People are more overconfident when facing
difficult problems than when facing easy ones
difficult problems than when facing easy ones
– Overconfident people are less likely to get sucked
into negative information cascades, they go by
into negative information cascades, they go by
their gut, and disrupt the signal that everyone else
is getting.
Good and Bad cascades
Good and Bad cascades
• Good cascades
Good cascades
– “Follow the crowd and you will find the buffet”
– Imitation of profitable behaviour is usually profitable for
the imitator too.
– Farmers imitate their neighbors who started growing
better crops from new seeds
better crops from new seeds.
• Bad cascades: result from people switching off their
p
private information/reasoning…
/ g
• Yet they are a mechanism for aggregating
information, just like a voting system or a market.
Decentralization
• Example:
Example:
– the US security agencies (CIA created in 1947 to
centralize all intelligence… but FBI, NSA remained,
all formed by independent, self‐interested agents)
– Efficient in gathering information, but couldn’t
prevent Perl Harbor the bombing of the WTC in
prevent Perl Harbor , the bombing of the WTC in
1993, the US Embassy in Kenya, and 9/11.
– The politicians
The politicians’ reaction has always (1946, 2001)
reaction has always (1946 2001)
been to call for centralization, opposite to the
trends in business, academy, science, technology
What is decentralization?
What is decentralization?
• Two main features of decentralized systems (DS):
– Power does not fully reside in one central location
– Many important decisions are made by individuals based on their own
specific knowledge rather than by an omniscient or farseeing planner.
• Examples:
Examples: flocks of birds, free‐market economies, cities, p2p computer
flocks of birds free market economies cities p2p computer
networks… and also: the US public school system, corporations
• DS foster and are fed by specialization, tacit (context‐based) knowledge
• DS allow for independent agents to coordinate their actions and solve
DS allow for independent agents to coordinate their actions and solve
difficult problems
• Problems of decentralized systems:
– Coordinating independent, self‐interested agents
g p , g
– Relevant local information may never get propagated to where it will be
useful.
– Important to have mechanisms that allow aggregating information.
Coordination
• Example: a crowd of pedestrians moving on the sidewalks
p p g
of a big city
• Coordination problems
– Definition: problem that to solve it, a person has to think
about what other people think the right answer is
– They are ubiquitous in real life: when to leave work to avoid
y q
traffic jams, where to go to eat tonight, how to meet our
friends, how do we allocate seats in the subway, who will
work where, how much should my factory produce
, y yp
– Key question: How can people voluntarily (without anyone
telling them what to do) make their actions fit together in an
efficient and orderly way?
efficient and orderly way?
The El Farol problem
The El Farol problem
• “No one goes there anymore. It is too crowded” ‐ Yogi Berra
• Early 1990ies; economist Brian Arthur posted the problem named
after a popular bar in Santa Fe
– If El Farol is <60% full on any night, everyone there will have a good
time If it is >60% no one will have fun Therefore people will go only if
time. If it is >60% no one will have fun. Therefore, people will go only if
they think it will be <60% full, otherwise they stay @home.
– How does one decide what to do an a given Friday night?
• One multi‐agent simulation with a variety of strategies shows wide
g y g
fluctuations each week, but overall over a number of weeks –
average just 60% attendance (optimal solution, max. # people having
fun)
• Another multi‐agent simulation where agents followed only one
Another multi agent simulation where agents followed only one
simple strategy (go if your last experiences have been good, don’t
worry about the others) showed a gradually stabilizing attendance at
jjust under 60%. Æ independent thinking helps! But inequality –
p g p q y the
population divided itself into two groups: regulars and people who
went only rarely, and usually had bad time when they went…
Focal points in coordination
Focal points in coordination
• Thomas Schelling experiment (1958) Meeting
g p ( ) g
someone in NY? Where? When? Count
suggestions:
– The info booth at Grand Central station at noon…
The info booth at Grand Central station at noon
• First come – first served seating in public spaces
• “Name
Name a positive number
a positive number”
• Focal points –
p salient landmarks upon which
p
people’s expectations would converge (Schelling
points) – provided people share a common
cultural background
cultural background.
Norms and conventions
Norms and conventions
• How
How quickly will the crowd learn which stairs
quickly will the crowd learn which stairs
to use?
• Another Milgram
Another Milgram experiment
experiment – ask people to
ask people to
give you their seat in the subway without
offering any reason….
• And yet another one – cutting into a long line
• Convention and pricing… many companies set
Convention and pricing… many companies set
their prices based on simple rules and
guesswork.
“Fairness”,
Fairness , punishment, trust
punishment, trust
• The Ultimatum game – as one‐shot, blind game
• Repeated prisoner's dilemma
• The public goods game (your assignment 2)
• Evolution of cooperation, Robert Axelrod, 1980
– Cooperation
Cooperation is the result of repeated interactions with the same people. The
is the result of repeated interactions with the same people The
foundation of cooperation is not really trust, but the durability of the
relationship. People who repeatedly deal with each other recognize the benefits
of cooperation and do not try to take advantage of each other, because they
know that if they do, the other person will be able to punish them. The key to
y , p p y
cooperation is the “shadow of the future”.
• The Ultimatum game, revisited
– This time, it is played repeatedly between the same two players, iterating their
roles…
roles…
• Trade, exchange, cooperation with strangers
– The value of trust in trading – evolved with capitalism bringing prosperity for
cooperating groups (ethnic groups, hanseatic guilds, Quakers)
Aggregation – weeding out the
alternatives
l
• A decentralized system can only produce intelligent results if
there is a means of aggregating the private information of
everyone
• An aggregation mechanism is a form of centralization,
(ideally) of all the private information of the participants
– Should provide incentives for revealing truthfully private info
– Should not inject extra bias in the system
• Mechanisms:
– One person with foresight
– Deliberation
– Polls / votes
– Price in a open market
– Prediction markets
Prediction markets
Voting
• Simple
Simple mechanism with good results if agents
mechanism with good results if agents
are truthful in their votes
• But the mechanism allows for strategic voting
But the mechanism allows for strategic voting
Æ skewing the results
Markets/Price
• Class experiment
p
– Students assigned roles and max. / min. prices
– Market
Market – each seller runs an auction, buyers bid
each seller runs an auction buyers bid
– The prices offered quickly converge to equilibrium
Prediction markets
Prediction markets
• “Want
Want to bet?
to bet?”
– When people ask for a bet, they are bypassing
deliberation and offering a good clue about the
deliberation and offering a good clue about the
confidence with which they hold their views
• If
If we want to get access to many minds, we
we want to get access to many minds we
look for economic incentives
– That is exactly what markets do. Prices emerge as
That is exactly what markets do Prices emerge as
a product of the independent judgments of many
p p
people each with their own judgments and tastes.
j g
Prediction markets
Prediction markets
• The central advantage of PM: they give people the
g yg p p
right incentive to disclose the information they hold
(they stand to win money if they get it right, or lose
money if they get it wrong)
money if they get it wrong)
• Those with specialized information can gamble as they
see fit
• Selection: only those who believe they have some
viable information participate (no more empty talkers)
• Those that are more confident bet higher stakes
• The University of Iowa Election Markets since 1988
Why do prediction markets work?
Why do prediction markets work?
• Friedrich Hayek, 1945 “The User of Knowledge in Society”
• The key economic question: how to incorporate “dispersed
bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory
knowledge which all the separate individuals possess?
knowledge which all the separate individuals possess?
• Answer: prices aggregate both the information and the
tastes of numerous people, far more material than could
possibly be assembled by any central planner or board
possibly be assembled by any central planner or board.
• Prices act as an astonishingly concise and accurate
coordinating and signaling device. They incorporate that
di
dispersed knowledge and in a sense also publicize it
dk l d di l bli i i
• When people are willing to put their money where their
mouth is, there is an increasing likelihood that they will be
, g y
right.
Failed predictions: manipulation, bias,
b bbl
bubbles
• Manipulation by powerful speculators
• Bias – inherent biases (overconfidence, preferences) in
large groups of investors
• Bubbles: anticipating the choice of others sets conditions
for information cascades
• Prediction
Prediction markets can only make predictions on facts, not
markets can only make predictions on facts, not
on values (e.g. deciding on whether to authorize stem cell
research can not be done through a market, but a market
could potentially predict if a law authorizing stem cell
p yp g
research will pass). They are not suitable for making
decisions, only for predicting what decisions would be….
Deliberation
• Group
Group deliberation
deliberation – the ideal of a
the ideal of a “deliberative
deliberative
democracy”: committees, teams, juries…
• Sources of deliberative failure
Sources of deliberative failure
– Informational influences
– Social pressures
S i l
• Private benefits versus Social benefits for each
member of the group
• Example: the Columbia disaster
How are small groups different from
wise crowds?
d
• People think of themselves as members of a team, while
in a market, they think of themselves as independent
actors.
• The group has an identity of its own
The group has an identity of its own
– Consensus is important for the existence and comfort of the
group
– Influence of the people in the group on each other
Influence of the people in the group on each other’ss judgment
judgment
is unavoidable.
– Group polarization
• Collecti
Collective wisdom, in contrast, is something that emerges
e isdom in contrast is something that emerges
as a result of many different independent judgments, not
something that the group should consciously come up
with.
ith
When are small groups productive?
When are small groups productive?
• On “eureka” problems –
p like crossword puzzles, when
p ,
there is a clear self‐affirming answer which is clearly
right once stated (if one member of the group finds it)
• When they have a clear agenda and when leaders take
Wh th h l d d h l d t k
an active role in making sure that everyone gets a
chance to speak
p
• Dissenting opinions should be encouraged, the devil’s
advocate role should be played frequently
• The diversity of the group is important
• The order of speaking is important (early speakers set
the tone)
the tone)
Measures for successful
deliberation
• Be aware of status and leadership
Be aware of status and leadership
– Encourage low status members (women, minorities)
– Leader should speak last after listening to everyone
Leader should speak last after listening to everyone
• Change reward structures / social norms
– Reward group success, not individual; do not
discourage dissent / whistle‐blowing
• Pre‐deliberation anonymity, secret ballots, Delphi
d lb b ll l h
Technique
• When silence is golden?
Wikis, Blogs, Open Source:
mass deliberation tools?
• Wikis
Wikis / open source software offer yet
/ open source software offer yet
another way of aggregating knowledge and
creativity
• Contributors lack economic incentive, but still
behave in good faith; wikis and OS won’tt do so
behave in good faith; wikis and OS won do so
well if the majority of contributors were
confused incompetent mischievous biased
confused, incompetent, mischievous, biased
or destructive
• Blogs: ensure widely dispersed and diverse
Bl id l di d d di
source of information and opinions