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05/22/2007 12:56 PM by name withheld; cheap talk

please look at the enormous literature on cheap talk and its effects on experiments. Rachel Croson has an interesting paper on the ultimatum game, where subjects are allowed to communicate costlessly. there are many more [View full text and thread]

12/06/2004 04:51 AM by Jay McCauley; bluffing

Many games can be structured so that players may choose to feign
strength when weak ("bluffing"). I've seen bluffing discussed in the classic
normative sense of optimal bluffing stragies (e.g., evolutionary game theory
literature, "Chicken", Von Neumann and Morgenstern's classic poker discussion). However, I have not seen *any* behavioral work that relates the models to what people actually do. "Bluffing" and related terms don't even appear in the index to Camerer's comprehensive book. This all seems a bit strange to me, as bluffing -- which people may or may not interpret as deceit -- seems to have rich psychological implications.

Does anyone have references for behavioral studies of bluffing (or perhaps some other literature that gets to the same idea)? Likewise, if anyone has thoughts about why studying bluffing in a behavioral context may not make sense, then I would love to know those thoughts (better to read them now than in a letter about why my manuscript was rejected!).

Contact via email is appreciated.

Regards,
Jay McCauley
PhD student in cognitive psychology at the University of Washington [Manage messages]