Directional behavioral spillover and cognitive load effects in multiple repeated games

Experimental Economics volume 22, pages705–734(2019)Cite this article

Abstract

In this study, we use a novel design to test for directional behavioral spillover and cognitive load effects in a set of multiple repeated games. Specifically, in our experiment, each subject plays a common historical game with two different matches for 100 rounds. After 100 rounds, the subject switches to a new game with one match and continues playing the historical game with the other match. This design allows us to identify the direction of any behavioral spillover. Our results show that participants exhibit both behavioral spillover and cognitive load effects. First, for pairs of Prisoners’ Dilemma and Alternation games, we find that subjects apply strategies from the historical game when playing the new game. Second, we find that those who participate in a Self Interest game as either their historical or new game achieve Pareto efficient outcomes more often in the Prisoners’ Dilemma and Alternation games compared to their control counterparts. Overall, our results show that, when faced with a new game, participants use strategies that reflect both behavioral spillover and cognitive load effects.

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. 1.

    To measure the behavioral variation in a game, we apply a standard entropy measure to the outcome distributions (Shannon 1948), which we will explain in detail in Sect. 4.

  2. 2.

    Graduate students from the Economics Department are excluded from the list.

  3. 3.

    We also repeat all analyses replacing the second 100 rounds with all rounds beyond 100, and find similar results.

  4. 4.

    If an observation has either AC or AS as the best fitting strategy along with other best fitting strategies, we simply categorize it as an AC (AS) type. This simplification enables us to decrease the proportion of multiple-type strategies.

  5. 5.

    38% subjects in PD (SA) control sessions have the same best fitting strategies. For subjects in treatments, 48% of them have the same best fitting strategies in PD, 29% in SA, and 88% in SI treatments.

  6. 6.

    Compared to PD control, subjects are weakly more likely to keep selfish strategies in (PD,PD) \(\rightarrow\) (PD,SI) (0.47 vs. 0.33, \(p=0.087\), one-sided test of proportions). However, it is worthwhile to note that the selfish strategy Grim Trigger can produce CC outcome, and this result does not contradict our outcome level analyses.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Andrea Jones-Rooy, Zhewei Song and Chao Tang for excellent research assistance, Nancy Kotzian, two anonymous referees and the co-editor, Marie Claire Villeval, for their thoughtful and constructive comments. The financial support from the National Science Foundation through Grant no. BCS-1111019 to Chen and the Natural Science Foundation of China through grant no. 71403140 to Liu is gratefully acknowledged. The research has been approved by the University of Michigan IRB.

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Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Tracy Xiao Liu & Yan Chen

  2. Department of Political Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    Jenna Bednar

  3. School of Information, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    Yan Chen

  4. Departments of Political Science and Economics, Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    Scott Page

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  1. Tracy Xiao Liu
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  2. Jenna Bednar
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  3. Yan Chen
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Correspondence to Yan Chen.

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Liu, T.X., Bednar, J., Chen, Y. et al. Directional behavioral spillover and cognitive load effects in multiple repeated games. Exp Econ 22, 705–734 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-018-9570-7

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Keywords

  • Multiple games
  • Repeated games
  • Behavioral spillovers
  • Cognitive load
  • Entropy

JEL Classification

  • C72
  • C91
  • D03