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Media type:
E-Article
Title:
Learning About One’s Self
Contributor:
Le Yaouanq, Yves;
Schwardmann, Peter
imprint:
Oxford University Press (OUP), 2022
Published in:
Journal of the European Economic Association, 20 (2022) 5, Seite 1791-1828
Language:
English
DOI:
10.1093/jeea/jvac012
ISSN:
1542-4766;
1542-4774
Origination:
Footnote:
Description:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>
<jats:p>To understand why naiveté about present-biased behavior is so prevalent and persistent, our experiment investigates how well participants learn from their past behavior in a real-effort task. While participants display naive present-biased behavior initially, our novel methodology allows us to establish that their updating is unbiased and would eliminate naiveté in the long run. Moreover, learning is unencumbered by a change in the environment. Our results suggest that persistent naiveté does not result from a fundamental inferential bias. However, participants underestimate their future learning—a bias that may lead to underinvestment in experimentation and a failure to activate self-regulation mechanisms.</jats:p>