Biases in Belief Reports

Dominik Bauer and Irenaeus Wolff

VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: Belief elicitation is important in many different fields of economic research. We show that how a researcher elicits such beliefs-in particular, whether the belief is about the participant's opponent, an unrelated other, or the population of others-affects the processes involved in the formation of belief reports. We find a clear consensus effect. Yet, when matching the opponent's action would lead to a low payoff and the researcher asks for the belief about this opponent, ex-post rationalization kicks in and beliefs are re-adjusted again. Hence, we recommend to ask about unrelated others or about the population in such cases, as 'opponent beliefs' are even more detached from the beliefs participants had when deciding about their actions in the corresponding game. We find no evidence of a hindsight bias or wishful thinking in any of the treatments.

Keywords: Belief Elicitation; Belief Formation; Belief-Action Consistency; Framing Effects; Projection; Consensus Effect; Wishful Thinking; Hindsight Bias; Ex-Post Rationalization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C91 D84 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Biases in belief reports (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:vfsc21:242458

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