Title

Stated Beliefs Versus Inferred Beliefs: A Methodological Inquiry And Experimental Test

Keywords

Experimental methods; Inferred beliefs; Repeated games; Stated beliefs

Abstract

Belief elicitation in game experiments may be problematic if it changes game play. We experimentally verify that belief elicitation can alter paths of play in a two-player repeated asymmetric matching pennies game. Importantly, this effect occurs only during early periods and only for players with strongly asymmetric payoffs, consistent with a cognitive/affective effect on priors that may serve as a substitute for experience. These effects occur with a common scoring rule elicitation procedure, but not with simpler (unmotivated) statements of expected choices of opponents. Scoring rule belief elicitation improves the goodness of fit of structural models of belief learning, and prior beliefs implied by such models are both stronger and more realistic when beliefs are elicited than when they are not. We also find that "inferred beliefs" (beliefs estimated from past observed actions of opponents) can predict observed actions better than the "stated beliefs" from scoring rule belief elicitation. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publication Date

11-1-2009

Publication Title

Games and Economic Behavior

Volume

67

Issue

2

Number of Pages

616-632

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2009.04.001

Socpus ID

70349303636 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/70349303636

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