TITLE:
An Experimental Comparison between Self- and Third-Party Evaluations
AUTHORS:
Takehisa Kumakawa
KEYWORDS:
Self-Evaluation, Third-Party Evaluation, Self-Serving Bias
JOURNAL NAME:
Theoretical Economics Letters,
Vol.5 No.4,
July
21,
2015
ABSTRACT: How to pick up the true
meaning of messages exchanged in the laboratory is an important issue for
experimental research. The present study investigates, by experimentally
comparing self- and third-party evaluations, to what extent self-evaluations by
message receivers can be relied on. After standard public-good game, subjects
receive a free-form written message evaluating their decision and self-evaluate its content from their counterparts. Third-party evaluators also evaluate the
content independently. A comparison between both evaluations shows that a
significant proportion of them agree. Firm evidence of a self-serving bias cannot
be found.