Primary Outcomes (end points)
Sender/owner experiment:
For the sender/owner game, the probability of disclosure for each quality level is the main outcome. This probability is expected to be independent of the quality level for all values above the lowest one. The experiment is structured to induce the sender's action (disclose/not disclose) for each possible value.
At the end of each within-subject variation, we also collect the sender's first-order beliefs: specifically, the sender's prediction of the receiver's guess in the absence of disclosure. This probability of disclosure, matched with the beliefs, allows us to categorize each sender in terms of their strategic thinking. We anticipate identifying fully rational players, Min+k strategic naives, and others.
Receiver/renter experiment:
The guess for quality in the absence of disclosure forms the first part of the primary outcome and is the initial question answered in each within-subject variation.
For each possible value, we then ask about the receiver's estimate of the sender's likelihood of disclosing a quality of the given value. Furthermore, we gather answers regarding higher-order beliefs: specifically, the receiver's estimation of what the sender believes the receiver will guess, given a particular value.
Similar to the sender/owner experiment, we plan to use the guesses and higher-order beliefs to classify receivers in terms of "strategic type": including fully rationals, Min+k strategic naives, and others.
We aim to compare the proportion of each type between treatment arms and the probability of disclosures.
An additional significant outcome of the study is the trajectory of the rate of disclosure by senders across different within-subject scenarios (i.e., as the number of potential quality values shifts from 5 to 3 to 2 in a random order). We anticipate that, as the range of quality's scores increases, senders will be less likely to disclose lower values. A larger number of alternatives complicates the receivers' guessing ability, thus inducing more strategic thinking from senders.
Furthermore, we also expect the nature of the distribution (uniform, bell-shaped, fat-tailed) to significantly impact the players' strategic thinking. While rational players theoretically should not be influenced by the knowledge of a specific distribution, under bounded rationality, we expect that knowledge of a specific distribution will affect perceptions of probability and thus influence players' strategic decisions.