Dumbing down rational players: learning and teaching in an experimental game

Antoine Terracol and Jonathan Vaksmann ()
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Jonathan Vaksmann: CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: This paper uses experimental data to examine the existence of a teaching strategy among bounded rational players. If players realize that their own actions modify their opponent's beliefs and actions, they might play certain actions to this specific end; and forego immediate payoffs if the expected payoffs if the expected payoff gain from a teaching strategy is high enough. Our results support the existence of a teaching strategy in several ways: First they show that players update their beliefs in order to take account of the reaction of their opponents to their own action. Second, we examine if players actually use a teaching strategy by playing an action that induces a poor immediate payoff but is likely to modify the opponent's behavior so that a preferable outcome might emerge in the future. We find strong evidence of such a strategy in the data and confirm this finding within a logistic model which suggests that the future expected payoff that could arise from a teaching strategy has indeed a significant impact on choice probabilities. Finally, we investigate the effective impact of a teaching strategy on achieved outcomes and find that efficient teachers can successfully use teaching in order to reach their favorite outcome at the expense of their opponents.

Keywords: Game theory; teaching; beliefs; experiment; Théorie des jeux; croyances; expérimentation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-03
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00145436v1
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Published in 2007

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Related works:
Journal Article: Dumbing down rational players: Learning and teaching in an experimental game (2009)
Working Paper: Dumbing down rational players: Learning and teaching in an experimental game (2009)
Working Paper: Dumbing down rational players: Learning and teaching in an experimental game (2009)
Working Paper: Dumbing down rational players: Learning and teaching in an experimental game (2009)
Working Paper: Dumbing down rational players: Learning and teaching in an experimental game (2009)
Working Paper: Dumbing down rational players: learning and teaching in an experimental game (2007)
Working Paper: Dumbing down rational players: Learning and teaching in an experimental game (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00145436

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