Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics最新文献

Biased decisions of Large Language Models (LLM): Computer control agents and the decoy effect 大语言模型（LLM）的偏差决策：计算机控制代理和诱饵效应

IF 1.5 3区经济学

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics Pub Date : 2026-09-01 Epub Date: 2026-08-26 DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2026.102641

Kevin Bösch

{"title":"Biased decisions of Large Language Models (LLM): Computer control agents and the decoy effect","authors":"Kevin Bösch","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2026.102641","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2026.102641","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly embedded into Computer Control Agents (CCAs), enabling them to act autonomously on behalf of users. While prior research has examined behavioral biases in LLM-generated text, little is known about whether such biases and heuristics extend to automated actions. This study investigates whether CCAs exhibit the decoy effect — a well-documented bias in human decision making, where the presence of an inferior alternative shifts preferences towards a target option. Using the open-source framework browser-use, 3600 simulations across five canonical decision scenarios with six state-of-the-art LLMs are analyzed. Results show an aggregate decoy effect where CCAs select the target more often when a decoy is present (43.4%) than when it is absent (38.0%; <span><math><mrow><mi>p</mi><mo><</mo><mo>.</mo><mn>001</mn></mrow></math></span>), consistent with bounded rationality observed in humans. However, the magnitude and direction of the effect vary across models, with some displaying no significant bias. These findings extend evidence of heuristics in LLM behavior from text outputs to autonomous actions, highlighting both opportunities and risks for deploying CCAs in decision-making contexts. Implications for digital nudging, system design, and the use of LLMs as simulations in behavioral research are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"124 ","pages":"Article 102641"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148951183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Corrigendum to “Two nudges, one goal: Promoting animal welfare in a virtual supermarket” [Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics 123 (2026) 102608] “两个推动，一个目标：促进虚拟超市中的动物福利”的更正[Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics] 123 (2026) 102608]

IF 1.5 3区经济学

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics Pub Date : 2026-09-01 Epub Date: 2026-07-16 DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2026.102621

Leonie Bach, Monika Hartmann, Nina Weingarten

引用次数: 0

Designing donor registries: Behavioral drivers of enrollment and giving 设计捐赠者登记：登记和捐赠的行为驱动因素

IF 1.5 3区经济学

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics Pub Date : 2026-07-01 Epub Date: 2026-06-22 DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2026.102612

Matej Lorko, Maroš Servátka, Robert Slonim

{"title":"Designing donor registries: Behavioral drivers of enrollment and giving","authors":"Matej Lorko, Maroš Servátka, Robert Slonim","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2026.102612","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2026.102612","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Many charitable organizations invite potential donors to first join a registry before soliciting donations from those who have joined. Behavioral theories suggest that the choice architecture of registry enrollment can influence not just participation but also future giving. Some approaches may be relatively more likely to increase the likelihood of joining but reduce the subsequent propensity to donate and the amount donated, while other methods might have the opposite effect. We experimentally test four behavioral theories – overhead aversion, status quo bias, reciprocity, and moral consistency – in a two-stage donor engagement model. We find that (1) disclosing registry-related overhead costs decreases donations, (2) changing the default enrollment method (op-in vs. opt-out) does not affect enrollment nor donations, (3) targeting reciprocity by offering a small gift conditional on joining the registry boosts enrollment but not donations, and (4) targeting moral consistency by requesting an upfront contribution does not decrease the likelihood of joining the registry and can improve charity returns. Our findings emphasize how subtle differences in the design of early-stage donor approaches can influence longer-term fundraising outcomes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"123 ","pages":"Article 102612"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148499655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Beyond sight: Exploring the impact of a multifaceted intervention on knowledge, attitudes and behaviors towards persons with visual impairment 超越视力：探索多方面干预对对视力障碍者的认识、态度和行为的影响

IF 1.5 3区经济学

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics Pub Date : 2026-07-01 Epub Date: 2026-06-20 DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2026.102604

Sergiu Burlacu, Davide Azzolini, Federico Podestà

{"title":"Beyond sight: Exploring the impact of a multifaceted intervention on knowledge, attitudes and behaviors towards persons with visual impairment","authors":"Sergiu Burlacu, Davide Azzolini, Federico Podestà","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2026.102604","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2026.102604","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We evaluate a multi-faceted intervention aimed at improving social inclusion and reducing prejudice against individuals with visual impairment. The intervention, randomly assigned to upper-secondary school students, consists of an awareness-raising activity and a simulation-based inter-group contact activity. While we find positive effects on knowledge of visual impairment, perspective-taking and empathic concerns, and general societal attitudes towards persons with visual impairment, no improvements are observed in terms of implicit attitudes or multidimensional attitudes. Moreover, the intervention does not improve outcomes measured through incentivized choices, such as the willingness to pay for social interaction with persons with visual impairment, beliefs regarding their performance and outcomes in various domains, and altruism towards them. The evidence suggests that assessing impacts only on knowledge and general attitudes, as is commonly done in the literature, may not suffice to determine the extent to which such interventions are successful at improving social inclusion for persons with visual or other forms of impairment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"123 ","pages":"Article 102604"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148499656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Prompting food safety responsibility: Does it influence consumers’ choices of food safety campaigns? 促进食品安全责任：是否影响消费者对食品安全活动的选择？

IF 1.5 3区经济学

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics Pub Date : 2026-07-01 Epub Date: 2026-06-15 DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2026.102607

Madalina Radu, Seda Erdem, Danny Campbell

{"title":"Prompting food safety responsibility: Does it influence consumers’ choices of food safety campaigns?","authors":"Madalina Radu, Seda Erdem, Danny Campbell","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2026.102607","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2026.102607","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Communicating food safety and risk information to consumers is essential to reducing the incidence of foodborne illness. However, despite widespread public health campaigns, behaviour change remains limited. This study investigates whether framing individual responsibility in campaign messages influences consumers’ stated preferences for food safety campaigns. Using a web-based discrete choice experiment with 2343 Scottish adults, participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: a control group (no prompt), a treatment with a statement-based responsibility prompt or a treatment with a question-based prompt. Respondents completed a series of choice tasks evaluating hypothetical campaigns that varied by delivery channel, timing and message style, alongside an opt-out option (“no campaign”). Results show that question-framed prompts significantly increase the likelihood of choosing a campaign over the opt-out, relative to both the control and statement conditions. While the overall effects are modest in magnitude, they are consistent with prior evidence on the cognitive and motivational impact of question-based framing. These findings suggest that simple, low-cost message framing strategies, particularly those encouraging reflection and self-persuasion, can enhance the perceived effectiveness of public health campaigns and may support improved food safety communication design.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"123 ","pages":"Article 102607"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148499658","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Corrigendum to “Household resilience during climate shocks in rural Benin: The role of matrilocality on girls' school dropout” [Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics 122 (2026) 102561] “贝宁农村气候冲击中的家庭复原力：母系地域对女孩辍学的作用”[行为与实验经济学杂志122 (2026)102561]

IF 1.5 3区经济学

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics Pub Date : 2026-07-01 Epub Date: 2026-04-27 DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2026.102575

Sènakpon Fidèle Ange Dedehouanou, Vihoutou Marthe Kougblenou Menou

引用次数: 0

Does population aging affect the financial vulnerability of rural households in China? 人口老龄化是否影响中国农村家庭的财务脆弱性？

IF 1.5 3区经济学

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics Pub Date : 2026-07-01 Epub Date: 2026-06-19 DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2026.102610

Jiancheng Zheng, Shangjia Guo, Liang Chen, Rong Niu, Peibin Chen

{"title":"Does population aging affect the financial vulnerability of rural households in China?","authors":"Jiancheng Zheng, Shangjia Guo, Liang Chen, Rong Niu, Peibin Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2026.102610","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2026.102610","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Against the backdrop of continuous changes in population age structure, financial risks faced by rural households arising from a rising old-age dependency ratio have become a practical obstacle to the sustained and stable development of China’s macroeconomy. Using data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) spanning 2013–2019, this study systematically examines the impact of the old-age dependency ratio on financial vulnerability among rural Chinese households, as well as its underlying mechanisms, by employing panel logit models, mediation effect models, and related empirical methods. The findings indicate that an increase in the old-age dependency ratio significantly raises the probability of rural households falling into financial vulnerability, and the results remain robust after addressing endogeneity concerns and conducting robustness checks. This effect is significant across regions and is more evident among households with weaker insurance protection, lower or middle levels of human capital investment, and limited liquid asset holdings. Furthermore, a higher old-age dependency ratio exacerbates financial vulnerability among rural households through reduced digital literacy, reduced financial literacy, increased caregiving burdens, and higher risk aversion. From a micro-level perspective, this study reveals the internal mechanisms through which demographic change affects rural household financial stability, enhances understanding of the formation of financial vulnerability, and provides empirical evidence and theoretical insights for preventing rural financial risks and improving relevant institutional arrangements.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"123 ","pages":"Article 102610"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148499654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Risk aversion and job market outcomes for people outside of the gender binary 风险规避和就业市场对非二元性别人群的影响

IF 1.5 3区经济学

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics Pub Date : 2026-07-01 Epub Date: 2026-06-16 DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2026.102603

Vivian Dong

引用次数: 0

An exploratory foray into the inclination to cooperate in spite of cooperation-induced stress 尽管有合作引起的压力，但对合作倾向的探索性探索

IF 1.5 3区经济学

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics Pub Date : 2026-07-01 Epub Date: 2026-02-26 DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2026.102536

Oded Stark, Grzegorz Kosiorowski

{"title":"An exploratory foray into the inclination to cooperate in spite of cooperation-induced stress","authors":"Oded Stark, Grzegorz Kosiorowski","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2026.102536","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2026.102536","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We establish a new approach to the modeling of cooperation, and we formulate a new solution concept for cooperative games. We do this by constructing a game of cooperation between individuals who exhibit distaste for relative deprivation, <em>RD</em>, in the sense that they experience stress when their income is lower than that of their comparators. In such a game, the sharing out of the jointly earned income between these individuals when they cooperate, as prescribed by standard solutions of cooperative games, might not be acceptable to the individuals. The stress from <em>RD</em> may have the upper hand. Measuring stress by <em>RD</em>, we thus model a setting in which two individuals who are concerned with being relatively deprived need to decide whether or not to cooperate. We term this setting an <em>RD cooperative game</em>, and we design a rule, the <em>RD solution</em>, for the distribution of the income yielded in this game. The <em>RD solution</em> prescribes cooperation in spite of cooperation-induced stress and preserves the spirit of standardness (an equal sharing of the gain that accrues from cooperation) for two-player games (a property shared by the main solution concepts for cooperative games).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"123 ","pages":"Article 102536"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148499660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Tax policy levers and taxpayer decision-making: insights from a laboratory experiment on an evolutionary model of income tax evasion decisions 税收政策杠杆与纳税人决策：对所得税逃税决策进化模型的实验室实验的见解

IF 1.5 3区经济学

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics Pub Date : 2026-07-01 Epub Date: 2026-06-25 DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2026.102613

Silvia Fedeli, Francesco Bloise, Elena Costarelli

{"title":"Tax policy levers and taxpayer decision-making: insights from a laboratory experiment on an evolutionary model of income tax evasion decisions","authors":"Silvia Fedeli, Francesco Bloise, Elena Costarelli","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2026.102613","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2026.102613","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>An evolutionary game provides a parsimonious benchmark for repeated interactions between tax authorities and taxpayers in income-tax evasion decisions. The model relaxes the assumption of fully rational, forward-looking agents and characterizes the stationary shares of inspection and full compliance through payoff comparisons. It predicts that lower tax rates and higher penalties are associated with a larger share of fully honest taxpayers.</div><div>A laboratory experiment from the taxpayers' perspective examines how tax-authority policy instruments affect decisions across repeated rounds. Consistent with the model's comparative statics, a higher tax rate is associated with a lower probability of full honesty, whereas a higher penalty rate is associated with a higher probability of full honesty. The data also show patterns consistent with experience-based adjustment, including lower compliance after an audit, a pattern commonly labeled the “bomb-crater effect”. Because subjective beliefs were not elicited, we frame these behavioral mechanisms as interpretations of the observed patterns rather than as directly identified psychological channels.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"123 ","pages":"Article 102613"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148499662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0