Marketing Papers
Document Type
Technical Report
Date of this Version
2016
Publication Source
Management Science
Volume
63
Issue
7
Start Page
2340
Last Page
2352
DOI
10.1287/mnsc.2016.2453
Abstract
A critical component of both economic and perceptual decision making under uncertainty is the belief-formation process. However, most research has studied belief formation in economic and perceptual decision making in isolation. One reason for this separate treatment may be the assumption that there are distinct psychological mechanisms that underlie belief formation in economic and perceptual decisions. An alternative theory is that there exists a common mechanism that governs belief formation in both domains. Here we test this alternative theory by combining a novel computational modeling technique with two well-known experimental paradigms. We estimate a drift-diffusion model (DDM) and provide an analytical method to decode prior beliefs from DDM parameters. Subjects in our experiment exhibit strong extrapolative beliefs in both paradigms. In line with the common mechanism hypothesis, we find that a single computational model explains belief formation in both tasks and that individual differences in belief formation are correlated across tasks.
Copyright/Permission Statement
Originally published in Management Science © 2016 INFORMS
This is a pre-publication version. The final version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2453
Keywords
extrapolative beliefs, response times, belief updating, sequential effects, hot-hand fallacy, judgment biases, drift-diffusion
Recommended Citation
Frydman, C., & Nave, G. (2016). Extrapolative Beliefs in Perceptual and Economic Decisions: Evidence of a Common Mechanism. Management Science, 63 (7), 2340-2352. http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2453
Included in
Applied Behavior Analysis Commons, Behavioral Economics Commons, Cognition and Perception Commons, Cognitive Psychology Commons, Marketing Commons
Date Posted: 15 June 2018
This document has been peer reviewed.