Measures of cognitive ability and choice inconsistency

Helene Willadsen, Sarah Zaccagni, Marco Piovesan and Erik Wengström

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2024, vol. 220, issue C, 495-506

Abstract: Cognitive skills affect individual choices. Researchers commonly use Raven's Progressive Matrices (RPM) tests and the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) to assess the relationship between cognitive abilities and economic decision making. In this paper, we study the relationship between these measures, and investigate the extent to which they are correlated and whether they are best described as substitutes or complements. Combining a sample of 686 children and a sample of 2,332 adults, we compare individual performances in the RPM test and CRT test. First, we report a significant positive correlation between the two measures of 0.3. Second, we document that performance in both the RPM test and CRT are significant predictors of behavioral inconsistency observed in incentivized time and risk preference elicitation tasks for children and risk preference elicitation task for adults.

Keywords: Intelligence; Raven Progressive Matrices; Cognitive Reflection; Cognitive Skills; Inconsistent Behavior; Time Preference; Risk Preference (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 C91 D81 D91 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268124000672
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:220:y:2024:i:c:p:495-506

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2024.02.029

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().