How to counteract biased self-assessments? An experimental investigation of reactions to social information

Gerlinde Fellner-Röhling, Kristijan Hromek, Janina Kleinknecht and Sandra Ludwig

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2023, vol. 206, issue C, 1-25

Abstract: In a lab experiment, we investigate whether social information can improve the accuracy of self-assessments of relative performance. In particular, we compare the effectiveness of different types of social information: subjects either learn their close peers’ (i) average absolute performance, (ii) average self-assessment or (iii) average bias of self-assessments. Additionally, we explore the demand for the different types of social information. Our results suggest that social information can help debiasing subjects’ self-assessments, but not all types of information are equally effective. Only learning about the average bias of peers improves self-assessments. Subjects are, in general, willing to pay for social information but mostly prefer information about their peers’ absolute performance, which is not helpful. Nevertheless, self-selected information on peers’ average bias triggers a stronger reaction to the information.

Keywords: Social information; Feedback; Overconfidence; Experiment; Debiasing strategies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D8 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:206:y:2023:i:c:p:1-25

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2022.12.002

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