Experimental Studies in Group Behavior

Abstract

This dissertation investigates into the multifaceted interactions between individual behavior and economic phenomena. My broad research interests span the areas of experimental economics, behavioral economics, anddecision-making. Inspired by real-world events, I utilize novel experimental methods to explore individual or group behavior in different contexts. In Chapter 1, I provide evidence that individuals don’t vary their patterns of contribution behavior in differentgroup sizes. In a laboratory experiment, I apply the strategy method to elicit how participants’ willingness to contribute to a public good depends on other group members’ decisions. This within-subject design evaluates and compares participants’ contribution behavior in different-sized groups. Two main findings emerge. First, the share of players who are conditional cooperators is consistent across group sizes. Second, the strategies chosen imply that conditional cooperators hold a correct belief that others are more cooperative in a larger than in a smaller group. Getting a deep understanding of conditional cooperation helps to address the contribution of social dilemmas and promote the contribution in the real world. In the second chapter, I examine imposter syndrome and its relationship to overconfidence. The feeling that one is less qualified than one's peers, known as imposter syndrome, is very common. To investigate the cause of this phenomenon, I conduct a novel experiment in which individuals are asked to predict the probability that they perform better than the person that they are paired with. The strategy method employed in this experiment allows meto elicit different beliefs in various scenarios. If they properly condition the rule that sorts participants into pairs, they would predict a probability of 50\% of being the better performer in their pair. The results show that participants do condition on how their opponent has been sorted but do not sufficiently condition on their own sorting. This experiment provides evidence that such a bias can give rise to imposter syndrome, as individuals are less optimistic about outperforming a similarly selected peer when they are in a higher-performing group. Furthermore, this effect co-exists with a general pattern of overconfidence, a belief that one has a greater than 50\% chance of outperforming a peer with a similar qualification. Through understanding and exploring the cause of imposter syndrome, organizations, and educational institutions can develop strategies to support individuals and mitigate the negative effects of imposter syndrome. Moreover, this research helps scientist to develop behavioral nudges and interventions. In the third chapter ``Which institutions matter for economic growth? An experiment'', I demonstrate, using a laboratory experiment, that inclusive political institutions can be a driver of economic growth. The idea of the impact of institutions on economic growth is not new in the theory and empirical literature, but it is challenging to isolate the impact of institutions with non-experimental data. Using experimental methods, I observechanges in consumption and investment behavior under inclusive and extractive institutions, and how these institutions steer economic growth in different directions. As a result, extractive political and economic institutions impede economic growth. The combination of an inclusive political institution and an extractive economic institution is more likely to lead the economy to a high- income high-welfare steady state than the combination of extractive political institution and inclusive economic institution. This result emphasizes the essential role of inclusive political institutions, which can help to identify potential areas for improvement and provide insights for policymakers and practitioners on how to promote economic development. In sum, this dissertation contributes to a deeper understanding of how individual perceptions, economic incentives, and group dynamics interact to shape behaviors in economic contexts. The findings across the three chapters emphasize the importance of considering group dynamics in the analysis of economic phenomena, offering valuable implications for policy-making, organizational strategies, and individual decision-making processes.