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Revealing the depth of reasoning in p-beauty contest games

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Patrizia Sbriglia
Patrizia Sbriglia*
Affiliation:
Department of Law and Economics, Faculty of Economics - University of Naples II-SUN, Via Gran Priorato di Malta 83043 Capua - Caserta - Italy
*
e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of information on levels of reasoning on individuals’ choices in p-beauty contest games. In the baseline design, subjects received information only on the average and target values from the previous period. In the alternative design, the winner(s) explained in a short message (30 words maximum) what reasoning he/she applied in selecting the target value and then stopped playing. The winner's message, the winning number, the target and average values were then displayed on all computer screens. The results show that non-winning players imitate the level of rationality of winners, and a significant proportion of the population adopt strategies which are best responses to other imitators’ behaviour rather than to the average level of rationality. Both the imitative strategies and the best responses to the imitative strategies stimulate a strong acceleration of the learning process.

Keywords

Guessing gamesExperimentsImitation

JEL classification

C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior C72: Noncooperative Games
Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 2008 , pp. 107 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10683-006-9157-6.

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