Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T01:23:04.415Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mapping the terra incognita of economic cognition will require an experimental paradigm that incorporates context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2018

Aaron D. Lightner  and
Edward H. Hagen
Aaron D. Lightner
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Vancouver, WA 98686-9600. [email protected]@wsu.eduhttp://anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/faculty/hagen/
Edward H. Hagen
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Vancouver, WA 98686-9600. [email protected]@wsu.eduhttp://anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/faculty/hagen/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Researchers, including Boyer & Petersen (B&P), commonly use experimental economic studies to draw their conclusions. These studies conventionally strip away context and present participants only with abstract rules. Because context is a strictly necessary component of the decision-making process, it is not clear that inferences about high-level folk psychological concepts (e.g., rationality) can be drawn from decontextualized economic games.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 41 , 2018 , e178
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baron-Cohen, S., Tager-Flusberg, H. & Lombardo, M., eds. (2013) Understanding other minds: Perspectives from developmental social neuroscience, 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bloom, P. (2004) Descartes' baby: How the science of child development explains what makes us human. Basic Books.Google Scholar
Camerer, C. F. & Fehr, E. (2005) Measuring social norms and preferences using experimental games: A guide for social scientists. In: Foundations of human sociality: Experimental and ethnographic evidence from 15 small-scale societies, ed. Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E. & Gintis, H., p. 472. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Churchland, P. M. (1981) Eliminative materialism and the propositional attitudes. The Journal of Philosophy 78(2):67–90. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/2025900.Google Scholar
Churchland, P. M. (2013) Plato's camera: How the physical brain captures a landscape of abstract universals. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Colman, A. M., ed. (1982) Cooperation and competition in humans and animals. Van Nostrand Reinhold (UK).Google Scholar
Cronk, L. (2007) The influence of cultural framing on play in the trust game: A Maasai example. Evolution and Human Behavior 28(5):352–58. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.05.006.Google Scholar
Cronk, L. & Wasielewski, H. (2008) An unfamiliar social norm rapidly produces framing effects in an economic game. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 6(4):283–308. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1556/JEP.6.2008.4.3.Google Scholar
Damasio, A. R. (2005) Descartes' error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. Penguin.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (1987) The intentional stance. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Eriksson, K. & Strimling, P. (2014) Spontaneous associations and label framing have similar effects in the public goods game. Judgment and Decision Making 9(5):360–72.Google Scholar
Fehr, E. & Schmidt, K. M. (1999) A theory of fairness, competition, and cooperation. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 114(3):817–68. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1162/003355399556151.Google Scholar
Gerkey, D. (2013) Cooperation in context: Public Goods games and post-Soviet collectives in Kamchatka, Russia. Current Anthropology 54(2):144–76. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1086/669856.Google Scholar
Gigerenzer, G. (2010) Rationality for mortals: How people cope with uncertainty. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gigerenzer, G. & Selten, R., eds. (2001) Bounded rationality: The adaptive toolbox. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gintis, H. (2007) A framework for the unification of the behavioral sciences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30(1):1–16. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X07000581.Google Scholar
Hagen, E. H. & Hammerstein, P. (2006) Game theory and human evolution: A critique of some recent interpretations of experimental games. Theoretical Population Biology 69(3):339–48. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tpb.2005.09.005.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D. (2003) Maps of bounded rationality: Psychology for behavioral economics. American Economic Review 93(5):1449–75. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1257/000282803322655392.Google Scholar
Keser, C. & van Winden, F. (2000) Conditional cooperation and voluntary contributions to public goods. Scandinavian Journal of Economics 102(1):23–39. Available at https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9442.00182.Google Scholar
Leliveld, M. C., van Dijk, E. & van Beest, I. (2008) Initial ownership in bargaining: Introducing the giving, splitting, and taking ultimatum bargaining game. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34(9):1214–25. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167208318600.Google Scholar
Liberman, V. (2004) The name of the game: Predictive power of reputations versus situational labels in determining Prisoner's Dilemma game moves. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30(9):1175–85. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167204264004.Google Scholar
Lightner, A. D., Barclay, P. & Hagen, E. H. (2017) Radical framing effects in the ultimatum game: The impact of explicit culturally transmitted frames on economic decision-making. Royal Society Open Science 4(12):e170543. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170543.Google Scholar
Simon, H. A. (1990) Bounded rationality. In: Utility and probability, ed. Eatwell, J., Milgate, M. & Newman, P., pp. 15–18. Palgrave Macmillan UK. Available at: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-1-349-20568-4_5.Google Scholar
Simon, H. A. (1991) Bounded rationality and organizational learning. Organization Science 2(1):125–34. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2.1.125.Google Scholar