TY - JOUR
T1 - By chance or by choice? Biased attribution of others' outcomes when social preferences matter
AU - Erkal, Nisvan
AU - Gangadharan, Lata
AU - Koh, Boon Han
N1 - Previous versions of this paper were circulated under the titles “By chance or by choice? Biased attribution of others’ outcomes” and “Attribution biases in leadership: Is it effort or luck?”.
We would like to thank the Editor and three anonymous reviewers, Kai Barron, Andy Brownback, Marina Gertsberg, Haley Harwell, Guy Mayraz, Vai-Lam Mui, Daniele Nosenzo, Silvia Sonderegger, Georg Weizsäcker, Tom Wilkening, seminar participants at WZB Berlin, University of Nottingham, University of Arkansas, University of Melbourne, Queensland University of Technology, Monash University, University of East Anglia, and Australian National University, as well as participants at the 11th Annual Australia New Zealand Workshop on Experimental Economics (ANZWEE), 86th Annual Conference of the Southern Economic Association (SEA), 8th Thurgau Experimental Economics Meeting, 2nd BEG Workshop on Behavioural and Experimental Economics (Gothenburg), 30th PhD Conference in Economics and Business, Behavioural Economics: Foundations and Applied Research Workshop (BEFAR), 2018 Asia Pacific Economic Science Association Conference, 2018 Economic Science Association World Meeting, and CPMD Workshop on Behavioural and Experimental Economics for their comments and feedback.
We gratefully acknowledge funding from the Australian Research Council (DP1094676).
Data and experimental software are available at: https://github.com/boonhankoh/EGK-effort_luck .
PY - 2022/4
Y1 - 2022/4
N2 - Decision makers in positions of power often make unobserved choices under risk and uncertainty. In many cases, they face a trade-off between maximizing their own payoff and those of other individuals. What inferences are made in such instances about their choices when only outcomes are observable? We conduct two experiments that investigate whether outcomes are attributed to luck or choices. Decision makers choose between two investment options, where the more costly option has a higher chance of delivering a good outcome (that is, a higher payoff) for the group. We show that attribution biases exist in the evaluation of good outcomes. On average, good outcomes of decision makers are attributed more to luck as compared to bad outcomes. This asymmetry implies that decision makers get too little credit for their successes. The biases are exhibited by those individuals who make or would make the less prosocial choice for the group as decision makers, suggesting that a consensus effect may be shaping both the belief formation and updating processes.
AB - Decision makers in positions of power often make unobserved choices under risk and uncertainty. In many cases, they face a trade-off between maximizing their own payoff and those of other individuals. What inferences are made in such instances about their choices when only outcomes are observable? We conduct two experiments that investigate whether outcomes are attributed to luck or choices. Decision makers choose between two investment options, where the more costly option has a higher chance of delivering a good outcome (that is, a higher payoff) for the group. We show that attribution biases exist in the evaluation of good outcomes. On average, good outcomes of decision makers are attributed more to luck as compared to bad outcomes. This asymmetry implies that decision makers get too little credit for their successes. The biases are exhibited by those individuals who make or would make the less prosocial choice for the group as decision makers, suggesting that a consensus effect may be shaping both the belief formation and updating processes.
KW - Decision-making under risk
KW - Beliefs about others' decisions
KW - Attribution biases
KW - Social preferences
KW - Consensus effect
KW - Experiments
KW - Beliefs about others’ decisions
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85115853182&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10683-021-09731-w
DO - 10.1007/s10683-021-09731-w
M3 - Article
VL - 25
SP - 413
EP - 443
JO - Experimental Economics
JF - Experimental Economics
SN - 1386-4157
IS - 2
ER -