{"title":"Gender differences in performance evaluations","authors":"Katja Görlitz , Tim Sels","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102459","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102459","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study analyzes the gender gap in self- and peer evaluations based on a laboratory experiment. Five players performed a creative task in a high-stakes winner-takes-all tournament. The treatment without validation informed all players that evaluations that they will conduct determine who will win. The treatment with public validation additionally informed them that they can see an objective performance measure of all players (including themselves) at the end of the experiment which is irrelevant for winning. The results show that men give themselves better self-evaluations compared to women when there is no validation. This gender difference vanishes completely when providing public validation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 102459"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145415085","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}
Gonzalo Llamosas García , Cristina Mazas Pérez-Oleaga
{"title":"What works in financial education? Experimental evidence on program impact","authors":"Gonzalo Llamosas García , Cristina Mazas Pérez-Oleaga","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102401","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102401","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Financial education is increasingly essential for safeguarding both individual and corporate well-being. This study systematically reviews global financial education experiments using a dual-method framework that integrates a deep learning classifier with advanced multivariate statistical techniques. Our analysis indicates that while short-term improvements in financial literacy are common, such gains tend to diminish over time without ongoing reinforcement. Moreover, the limited impact of digital innovations and monetary incentives suggests that successful financial education depends on more than simply deploying technological solutions or extrinsic rewards. Overall, this review provides valuable insights into the evolving landscape of financial education in a dynamic economic context and underscores the need for sustainable strategies that secure lasting improvements in financial literacy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 102401"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144654313","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}
{"title":"The effect of social norms on parents’ beliefs and food choices: Evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment","authors":"Noémi Berlin , Tarek Jaber-Lopez , Moustapha Sarr","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102463","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102463","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In a lab-in-the-field experiment, we investigate the influence of social norms on 300 parents’ beliefs regarding the nutritional quality of food items and their subsequent food choices. We use a 3 × 2 between-subject experimental design where we vary two factors: 1 — the social norm provided to parents: a <em>descriptive norm</em> (what other parents choose) vs. an <em>injunctive norm</em> (what other parents approve of), and 2 — the recipient of the food decisions made by parents: their own child vs. an unknown child. Parents participate in a two-stage process. In the first stage, we elicit their beliefs regarding the nutritional quality of various food items and ask them to make a food basket without specific information. In the second stage, based on their assigned treatment, they receive specific information and repeat the belief elicitation and the food basket selection tasks. We find that only the <em>descriptive norm</em> significantly reduces parents’ overestimation rate of items’ nutritional quality. <em>Injunctive norm</em> significantly improves the nutritional quality of both, the parent’s and child’s baskets. <em>Descriptive norm</em> significantly improves the nutritional quality of child’s baskets only when parents are choosing for unknown child.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 102463"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145361961","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}
{"title":"Assessing the peer effects on willingness to pay for low-carbon food: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial","authors":"Xinyu Wang, Yinyu Zhao, Zemiao Xi","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102462","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102462","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Food consumption is one of the main sources of global carbon emissions, and promoting low-carbon food consumption is seen as a key strategy for sustainable development. This study conducted a randomized controlled trial with 1388 Chinese university students in 2024, using the contingent valuation method and interval regression model to explore how peer effects affect consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for low-carbon milk. The study reveals an asymmetric peer effect on WTP for low-carbon milk, with positive influence being more pronounced than negative. The information intervention enhanced the positive peer effect and mitigated the negative peer effect, but stand-alone information showed no significant impact. Heterogeneous effects were observed across SN levels. Given that peer effects may be an essential driver of low-carbon food consumption, it is recommended that public policy consider its catalytic role.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 102462"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145319918","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}
{"title":"The relationship between household debt and the Big Five personality traits","authors":"Taehyun Lee , Almas Heshmati","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102468","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102468","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the relationship between household debt and the Big Five personality traits using data from the Korea Labor and Income Panel Study. The extensive and intensive margins of debt participation are analyzed through regression analysis. To address potential sample selection bias from non-random missing data, a Heckman selection model is employed. The results indicate that openness is negatively associated with the probability of debt-holding, while conscientiousness is positively associated. To enhance causal interpretation, panel models are additionally estimated, treating personality traits as predetermined. While personality traits do not significantly predict year-on-year changes in debt amounts, they remain a relevant predictor of debt participation. These findings suggest that personality-based financial profiling may help identify households more prone to incurring debt. The results are interpreted in the light of South Korea’s cultural context, particularly the influence of <em>Chemyeon</em> (social face), and compared with findings from Western societies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 102468"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145361960","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}
{"title":"Moral wiggle room in the dictator game","authors":"Sanmitra Ghosh , Mridu Prabal Goswami , Shubhro Sarkar","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102431","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102431","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study analyzes a modified dictatorship game in which, before splitting a fixed endowment, dictators are informed about the amount their recipients would have kept for themselves had they been assigned the role of allocators. We posit that dictators will selectively use the additional information and exploit a moral wiggle room — they will keep a larger amount when they face recipients who would have behaved more selfishly than themselves and ignore the knowledge in case of more benevolent recipients. We ran an experiment with treatment and control sessions, giving dictators information regarding potential recipients only in the former. Our experimental findings support our hypotheses, which suggest that dictators’ decisions are driven not just by their idiosyncratic preferences for fairness but also by those of others. Our paper contributes to the literature on subtle contextual cues that adversely affect the prosocial behavior of dictators.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 102431"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145362022","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}
{"title":"Advancing openness in economic research through the lens of behavioral and experimental economics","authors":"Rima-Maria Rahal","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102454","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102454","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Open Science adoption may be seen as a process of normative change: Researchers must decide whether they will integrate Open Science principles into their work. Here, I outline first steps for developing a utility function, modeling individual researchers’ choices to engage in Open (OS) or Covert (CR) Research. In addition, I suggest examining economic games for their potential to partially model decision settings in which researchers operate. I argue that empirically studying the influence of researcher considerations, research environments and the academic incentive system on research norm compliance is a promising basis for developing targeted interventions and designing effective institutions in which robust and transparent research practices become the norm.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 102454"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145265488","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}
Christian Ben Lakhdar , Antoine Deplancke , Fabrice Le Lec , Sophie Massin , Anthony Piermatteo , Nicolas G. Vaillant
{"title":"‘You can quit!’: Exploring the efficacy of new cigarette pack warnings through an experiment","authors":"Christian Ben Lakhdar , Antoine Deplancke , Fabrice Le Lec , Sophie Massin , Anthony Piermatteo , Nicolas G. Vaillant","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102452","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102452","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In response to the health impacts of smoking, cigarette packs with health warnings have proven effective. However, it remains undetermined whether enhancements or modifications could amplify their impact, in helping smokers to quit and/or deterring initiation. We aimed at providing new evidence on this issue by using different motivational leverages identified in the psychology and economic literature. We developed new warnings based on commitment, cognitive dissonance, empowerment and Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems use. To determine which types of warnings are the most effective, we conducted an online experiment where participants (<em>n</em> = 860, including 335 smokers) were exposed to a specific type of warning, using conventional regulatory warnings as a control. Traditional indicators (measures of emotions, reactions, beliefs, perceived efficacy and intentions) and an innovative behavioural indicator (incentive-compatible willingness-to-pay) were used to assess the efficacy of the warnings. The conventional regulatory warnings performed at least as well as the alternative ones in almost all the relevant dimensions. In this respect, alternative warnings are disappointing, although some have a positive effect compared to no warning and may be used as a basis for complementary or targeted warnings or prevention measures in other contexts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 102452"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145265491","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}
{"title":"The attitude–behavior gap is not one-sided: Some do more for the environment than they believe","authors":"Vojtěch Zíka , Petra Olšová , Michaela Jánská","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102446","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102446","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This incentivized laboratory experiment (<span><math><mrow><mi>N</mi><mo>=</mo><mn>99</mn></mrow></math></span>) maps survey-measured environmental attitudes onto behavior elicited through an effort task, enabling the analysis of both negative attitude–behavior gaps (where attitudes exceed behavior) and positive gaps (where behavior exceeds attitudes). Environmental attitudes were measured using the New Ecological Paradigm Scale. Behavior was assessed through the Survivor Task, in which participants had to press the spacebar at least once every 20 seconds to keep the task running. As long as the task remained active, it generated donations for a local project aimed at improving the environment. The experiment revealed not only the commonly discussed negative attitude–behavior gap but also a similarly sized positive gap. Although the negative gap was slightly larger, participants with a positive gap contributed three times more to the total donation of €182. Given gender differences in attitudes, exploratory analysis showed that women exhibited smaller gaps than men, indicating a closer alignment between attitudes and behavior. This aligns with our additional finding: attitudes and behavior were positively correlated for women but negatively for men. The results challenge the common belief that most people fail to act on their attitudes. Since many act better than their attitudes predict, efforts to close the negative gap may fail if the positive gap is overlooked.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 102446"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145157441","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}
{"title":"The effect of social distancing on trust and solidarity","authors":"Antonio Filippin , Noemi Pace","doi":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102402","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.socec.2025.102402","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates the effect of social distancing on behavioral traits (trust, trustworthiness, and solidarity) that are important in interpersonal relationships. Toward this goal, we exploit the exogenous manipulation of social distancing provided by the different timing of stay-at-home orders issued in New York and Arizona during the COVID-19 outbreak. The experimental design also entails a between-subject manipulation in order to distinguish In-group vs. Out-group effects. The results show a positive In-group effect on trust, robust to the degree of compliance to the treatment, while we do not find evidence of significant effects on the other behavioral traits.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51637,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 102402"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144654312","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}