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Abstract While the significance of narrative thinking has become increasingly recognized by social scientists, very little empirical research has documented its consequences for economically significant outcomes. We address this gap in one important domain: valuations. In two online experiments, participants selected and uploaded a picture of an item they owned (mug in study one, hat in study two) without knowing why. They were then asked to either tell the story of their item or list its characteristics. Finally, participants were given the opportunity to sell their items to us via an incentive-compatible procedure (Multiple Price List). That is, they decided whether to accept or reject a series of prices (between $1-100), knowing that one of their decisions might be randomly selected to be executed. The narrative treatment, which provided no new information, led to substantially higher selling prices (33% increase) and rates of participants refusing all offered prices (78% increase). The impact of different narrative and list types (description and acquisition) was also explored. Finally, participants answered a questionnaire to allow for mechanism analysis. While the significance of narrative thinking has become increasingly recognized by social scientists, very little empirical research has documented its consequences for economically significant outcomes. We address this gap in one important domain: valuations. In an online experiment, participants selected and uploaded pictures of an item they owned (hat) without knowing why. They were then asked to either tell the story of their item, list its characteristics, or neither (counting zeros filler task or no task at all. Finally, participants were given the opportunity to sell their items to us via an incentive-compatible procedure (Multiple Price List). That is, they decided whether to accept or reject a series of prices (between $1-300), knowing that one of their decisions might be randomly selected to be executed. Finally, participants answer a questionnaire to allow for mechanism analysis.
Trial Start Date August 05, 2022 September 29, 2022
Trial End Date August 07, 2022 October 01, 2022
Last Published August 09, 2022 02:33 PM September 28, 2022 02:29 PM
Intervention (Public) Self-constructed stimuli - Participants were randomized to describe the item they chose in different ways. Self-constructed stimuli - Participants were randomized to describe the item they chose in different ways or not at all.
Intervention Start Date August 05, 2022 September 29, 2022
Intervention End Date August 07, 2022 October 01, 2022
Planned Number of Clusters 750 participants 1000 participants
Planned Number of Observations 750 participants 1000 participants
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms 150 acquisition narrative, 150 description narrative, 150 acquisition list, 150 description list, and 150 blank baseline. 250 narrative, 250 list, 250 blank baseline, and 250 filler task baseline.
Intervention (Hidden) The different conditions were - acquisition narrative, description narrative, acquisition list, description list, and blank baseline. The different conditions are - narrative, list, blank baseline (no task), and filler task baseline (counting zeros).
Pi as first author No Yes
Building on Existing Work No Yes
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