How individual preferences get aggregated in groups - An experimental study

Attila Ambrus (), Ben Greiner and Parag Pathak
Additional contact information
Attila Ambrus: Department of Economics, Duke University

No 2013-24, Discussion Papers from School of Economics, The University of New South Wales

Abstract: This paper experimentally investigates how individual preferences, through unrestricted deliberation, get aggregated into a group decision in two contexts: reciprocating gifts, and choosing between lotteries. In both contexts we find that median group members have a significant impact on the group decision, but particular other members also have some influence. Non-median members closer to the median tend to have more influence than other members. By investigating the same individual’s influence in different groups, we find evidence for relative position in the group having a direct effect on influence. We do not find evidence that group choice exhibits a shift in a particular direction that is independent of member preferences and caused by the group decision context itself. We also find that group deliberation not only involves bargaining and compromise, but it also involves persuasion: preferences tend to shift towards the choice of the individual’s previous group, especially for those with extreme individual preferences.

Keywords: group decision-making; role of deliberation; social influence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C92 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2013-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-dcm, nep-exp, nep-gth and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://research.economics.unsw.edu.au/RePEc/papers/2013-24.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: How Individual Preferences Get Aggregated in Groups - an Experimental Study (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:swe:wpaper:2013-24

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from School of Economics, The University of New South Wales Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Hongyi Li ().