Bidding for Nothing? The Pitfalls of overly Neutral Framing

Arbeitspapier

Neutral framing is a standard tool of experimental economics. However, overly neutral instructions, which lack any contextual clues, can lead to strange behavior. In a contextless second price auction for a meaningless good, a majority of subjects enter positive bids - a case of cognitive experimenter demand effect. Subjects bid positive amounts because this is what they think they are tasked with in the experiment. Adding a second auction that has a context drastically reduces the positive bids in the meaningless first auction by reducing the cognitive experimenter demand effect.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper ; No. 14-063/I

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Design of Experiments: General ; Auctions
• Subject: Context ; Neutral Framing ; Experimenter Demand Effect ; Experiment ; Second-Price Auction

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Dürsch, Peter ; Muller, Julia
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Tinbergen Institute
• (where): Amsterdam and Rotterdam
• (when): 2014

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/98876
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET