The effect of cognitive load on economic decision-making: a replication attempt

Sheryl Ball, Benjamin Katz, Flora Li and Alec Smith

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2023, vol. 210, issue C, 226-242

Abstract: When cognitive load exceeds cognitive capacity, individuals may make poorer decisions, especially when substantial deliberation is required. Deck and Jahedi’s (2015) influential work on cognitive load found that individuals whose arithmetic performance is most impacted by high cognitive load become more risk averse, less patient and more subject to the anchoring effect. Since results of cognitive load manipulation studies are mixed, replication of influential studies is essential to strengthen our understanding of the effects of cognitive load. In this paper, we attempt to closely replicate Experiment 1 in Deck and Jahedi (2015). Though we observe similar effects of cognitive load on arithmetic performance, we fail to replicate their overall results on risky choice and impatience. While we are unable to clearly identify the reasons for this non-replication, the evidence points to subtle differences in the allocation of attention and effort across subject pools.

Keywords: Replication; Cognitive load; Risky choice; Patience (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)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268123000938
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:210:y:2023:i:c:p:226-242

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2023.03.018

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 ().