5 ms·

You didn't see any horizon effect? People didn't become more likely to "cheat" as the game and the value of their reputation approached an end?

mizzao 11y ago
We did see that effect! But, it was pretty minor. In fact, we saw all sorts of effects that would have been impossible to observe in a traditional lab experiment. One other interesting effect we saw was a day-to-day restart effect: just leaving and coming back the next day was enough to raise the amount of cooperation a significant amount. It's not detectable at the individual level, but in aggregate it's as if going everyone going about their life for a day was enough to instill some new optimism about cooperation at the beginning of a new session than at the end of the day before. Just that last observation returns to the original point that was made: is it even reasonable to draw conclusions about real-life cooperation from these highly clustered, short-term studies in a lab? We're trying to show that the "virtual lab" on the Internet is a way to get around these constraints. If you're doing research in this area, check out our OSS projects: https://github.com/VirtualLab https://github.com/VirtualLab
- tdaltonc 11y ago
  That's a very interesting project. The field desperately needs an alternative to z-tree and psychtoolbox. JS web app seems like a great solution! I' wrapping up my PhD in neuroEcon at USC. I've started a company to help developers use neuro/econ/psych findings to improve their apps. Let me know when you're done with your post-doc. I might have some applied research questions you'd find interesting.
  - mizzao 11y ago
    Interestingly, I think "the field" now refers to an intersection of not just economics and psychology, but also sociology, computer science, and others. More and more behavioral research is going to be done on the Internet and this is going to play a role in designing socio-technical systems. Although it might sound like an oxymoron, I think computer scientists are going to be both best equipped for and have the most reason to study digital human behavior.
    - tdaltonc 11y ago
      I totally agree. Behavioral science needs an applied branch, and computer scientists are going to have a big role to play there.

mizzao 11y ago

We did see that effect! But, it was pretty minor. In fact, we saw all sorts of effects that would have been impossible to observe in a traditional lab experiment. One other interesting effect we saw was a day-to-day restart effect: just leaving and coming back the next day was enough to raise the amount of cooperation a significant amount. It's not detectable at the individual level, but in aggregate it's as if going everyone going about their life for a day was enough to instill some new optimism about cooperation at the beginning of a new session than at the end of the day before. Just that last observation returns to the original point that was made: is it even reasonable to draw conclusions about real-life cooperation from these highly clustered, short-term studies in a lab? We're trying to show that the "virtual lab" on the Internet is a way to get around these constraints. If you're doing research in this area, check out our OSS projects: https://github.com/VirtualLab https://github.com/VirtualLab

tdaltonc 11y ago
That's a very interesting project. The field desperately needs an alternative to z-tree and psychtoolbox. JS web app seems like a great solution! I' wrapping up my PhD in neuroEcon at USC. I've started a company to help developers use neuro/econ/psych findings to improve their apps. Let me know when you're done with your post-doc. I might have some applied research questions you'd find interesting.
- mizzao 11y ago
  Interestingly, I think "the field" now refers to an intersection of not just economics and psychology, but also sociology, computer science, and others. More and more behavioral research is going to be done on the Internet and this is going to play a role in designing socio-technical systems. Although it might sound like an oxymoron, I think computer scientists are going to be both best equipped for and have the most reason to study digital human behavior.
  - tdaltonc 11y ago
    I totally agree. Behavioral science needs an applied branch, and computer scientists are going to have a big role to play there.