Reacting to ambiguous messages: An experimental analysis
Reacting to ambiguous messages: An experimental analysis
Ambiguous language is ubiquitous and often deliberate. Recent theoretical work (Bose and Renou, 2014; Kellner and Le Quement, 2018; Beauchêne et al., 2019) has shown how language ambiguation can improve outcomes by mitigating conflict of interest. Our experiment finds a significant effect of language ambiguation on subjects who are proficient at Bayesian updating. For ambiguity averse subjects within this population, a significant part of this effect operates via the channel of subjects' desire to reduce ambiguity. For both ambiguity averse and neutral subjects within this population, an additional behavioral channel is also present.
Ambiguity aversion, Communication, Laboratory experiment, Persuasion
360-378
Kellner, Christian
4e2ed069-76c7-4084-a353-f56ee03e2094
Le Quement, Mark T.
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Riener, Gerhard
8e8e27a6-4931-4e70-b223-688f3fd616c1
1 November 2022
Kellner, Christian
4e2ed069-76c7-4084-a353-f56ee03e2094
Le Quement, Mark T.
db3377aa-f132-410d-bde1-bcaa8c5d1f72
Riener, Gerhard
8e8e27a6-4931-4e70-b223-688f3fd616c1
Kellner, Christian, Le Quement, Mark T. and Riener, Gerhard
(2022)
Reacting to ambiguous messages: An experimental analysis.
Games and Economic Behavior, 136, .
(doi:10.1016/j.geb.2022.09.007).
Abstract
Ambiguous language is ubiquitous and often deliberate. Recent theoretical work (Bose and Renou, 2014; Kellner and Le Quement, 2018; Beauchêne et al., 2019) has shown how language ambiguation can improve outcomes by mitigating conflict of interest. Our experiment finds a significant effect of language ambiguation on subjects who are proficient at Bayesian updating. For ambiguity averse subjects within this population, a significant part of this effect operates via the channel of subjects' desire to reduce ambiguity. For both ambiguity averse and neutral subjects within this population, an additional behavioral channel is also present.
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Accepted/In Press date: 6 October 2022
e-pub ahead of print date: 18 October 2022
Published date: 1 November 2022
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Acknowledgments: We thank Yoram Halevy, Peter Klibanoff, Sujoy Mukerji, seminar participants at Düsseldorf and conference participants at EEA/ESEM 2017, Lisbon and ESA European Meeting 2017, WU Vienna, for valuable comments. Financial support was provided by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) through the grant 235577387/GRK1974.
Funding Information:
Acknowledgments: We thank Yoram Halevy, Peter Klibanoff, Sujoy Mukerji, seminar participants at Düsseldorf and conference participants at EEA/ESEM 2017, Lisbon and ESA European Meeting 2017, WU Vienna, for valuable comments. Financial support was provided by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) through the grant 235577387/GRK1974 .
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© 2022 The Author(s)
Keywords:
Ambiguity aversion, Communication, Laboratory experiment, Persuasion
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Local EPrints ID: 471541
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/471541
ISSN: 0899-8256
PURE UUID: c6e142f7-a235-400d-8fc5-6bb8dc6d7b46
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Date deposited: 10 Nov 2022 17:41
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 04:18
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Author:
Mark T. Le Quement
Author:
Gerhard Riener
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