Florian Artinger

Max Planck Institute for Human Development | MPIB · Center of Adaptive Behavior and Cognition

In the management literature, heuristics are often conceived of as a source of systematic error, whereas logic and statistics are regarded as the sine qua non of good decision making. Yet, this view can be incorrect for decisions made under uncertainty, as opposed to risk. Research on fast and frugal heuristics shows that simple heuristics can be s...

Abundant evidence across the behavioral and social sciences suggests that there are substantial individual differences in pro-social behavior. However, little is known about the psychological mechanisms that underlie social preferences. This paper investigates whether empathy and Theory of Mind shape individual differences in pro-social behavior as...

We demonstrate by means of a simulation that the conceptual map presented by Bentley et al. is incomplete without taking into account people's decision processes. Within the same environment, two decision processes can generate strikingly different collective behavior; in two environments that fundamentally differ in transparency, a single process...

Whenever people depend on others, information about how those around them are likely to behave is important for the pursuit and achievement of goals. We investigated how the way such social information is learned, by description or experience, affects offers in a bargaining situation. Participants learned how often each offer had previously been ac...

The quadratic scoring rule (QSR) is often used to guarantee an incentive compatible elicitation of subjective probabilities over events. Experimentalists have regularly not been able to ensure that subjects fully comprehend the consequences of their actions on payoffs given the rules of the games. In this note, we present a procedure that allows th...

The social world is often portrayed as being less predictable and more uncertain than the nonsocial world. People may therefore feel the need to search more for information before making a choice. However, we suggest that cognitive tools such as social projection and norm‐based expectation may help people to predict others' behaviors in the social...

Defensive decision making occurs when the decision‐maker does not choose the option that is in the best interest of an organization or client but instead chooses a less effective but lower risk alternative that protects him or her in case something goes wrong. Such decisions are widespread across occupations and sectors and cause substantive damage...

Computerized Decision Support Systems (CDSSs) can be a vital component in a medical setting to foster the use of evidence based medicine and minimize malpractice. Surprisingly, the adoption rate of CDSSs has remained far below expectations and there has been little impact of CDSSs on measurable health outcomes. We outline the components of clinical...

The social world is often portrayed as being less predictable and more uncertain than the nonsocial world. We argue that if cognitive tools such as social projection and norm-based expectation can be used to predict others’ behavior, social uncertainty may nevertheless trigger less search than nonsocial uncertainty. In support of this thesis, we fo...

Defensive decision making occurs when a manager ranks an option as the best for the organization yet deliberately chooses a second-best option that protects him or herself against negative consequences. We study 950 managers in a public administration to analyze the frequency and causes of defensive decisions. We find that at each hierarchy level d...

An important prerequisite to encourage pro-environmental behavior is to understand how people make decisions. Specifically, humans are often confronted with an environment that exhibits considerable uncertainty due to limited time, information, and computational capacity. In such a context, Homo oeconomicus is not necessarily the benchmark by which...

Often in cooperative situations, many aspects of the decision-making environment are uncertain. We investigate how cooperation is shaped by the way information about risk is presented (from description or from experience) and by differences in risky environments. Drawing on research from risky choice, we compare choices in stochastic social dilemma...

Diese Dissertation umfasst drei eigenständige Essays, die sich mit den psychologischen Mechanismen in strategischer Interaktion beschäftigen. Ökonomische Theorien werden hierbei aus einer empirischen Perspektive untersucht. Das erste Essay ist eine Studie zum Zusammenhang zwischen sozialen Präferenzen und individuellen Unterschieden in den Disposit...

Economists have been theorizing that other-regarding preferences influ-ence decision making. Yet, what are the underlying psychological mechanisms that inform these preferences? Empathy and Theory of Mind (ToM) are dis-positions considered to be essential in social interaction. We investigate the connection between an individual's preference type a...

Empathy and the Theory of Mind (ToM) are mental constructs considered to be essential in social interaction. We investigate their impact on behavior in the Dictator and Ultimatum Game. For that purpose, cognitive and emotional psychometric scales are applied to infer the general ability of subjects to empathize and engage in ToM. A measure for 'ToM...

Economists have been theorizing that other-regarding preferences influence decision making. Yet, what are the corresponding psychological mechanisms that inform these preferences in laboratory games? Empathy and Theory of Mind (ToM) are dispositions considered to be essential in social interaction. We investigate the connection between an individua...