Gari Walkowitz

The ‘Short Five’ (S5): Measuring personality traits using comprehensive single items

A new approach to the construction of short questionnaires is introduced: ‘comprehensive single items’ (CSI) are developed with the intention to match expert descriptions of a construct as closely as possible. Based on this idea, a 60–item questionnaire, the ‘Short Five’ (S5) is constructed for measuring 30 facets of the Five–Factor Model. Studies in Estonian, Finnish, English, and German showed that the S5 domain scales had correlations over 0.8 with their counterparts in longer questionnaires, and that the factor structure was similar to that of the normative US NEO–PI–R sample. The S5 can be recommended for large–scale studies where participants’ time is limited. The CSI approach can be successfully used in short scale development, in addition to more traditional methods. Copyright

On the Prevalence of Framing Effects Across Subject-Pools in a Two-Person Cooperation Game

In this experimental study, involving subjects from Abu-Dis (West Bank), Chengdu (China), Helsinki (Finland), and Jerusalem (Israel), we test for a presentation bias in a two-person cooperation game. In the positive frame of the game, a transfer creates a positive externality for the opposite player, and in the negative frame, a negative one. Subjects in Abu-Dis and Chengdu show a substantially higher cooperation level in the positive externality treatment. In Helsinki and Jerusalem, no framing effect is observed. These findings are also reflected in associated first-order beliefs. We argue that comparisons across subject-pools might lead to only partially meaningful and opposed conclusions if only one treatment condition is evaluated. We therefore suggest a complementary application and consideration of different presentations of identical decision problems within (cross-cultural) research on subject-pool differences.

Personality disorder categories as combinations of dimensions: translating cooperative behavior in borderline personality disorder into the five-factor framework.

The authors examined the proposal that personality disorder categories may denote particular detrimental combinations of personality dimensions. A multiround economic exchange game (ten round trust game), conducted with university students pre-selected on basis of their personalities (N = 164), provided a framework within which to investigate inability to repair ruptured cooperation. This behavior, thought to be characteristic of patients diagnosed with DSM-IV borderline personality disorder, was predicted only by the combination of high Neuroticism and low Agreeableness. Our results highlight an advantage of the categorical approach, category labels being a much more economic means of description than the delineation of interactions between dimensions.

Measuring single constructs by single items: Constructing an even shorter version of the "Short Five" personality inventory.

The aim of this study was to construct a short, 30-item personality questionnaire that would be, in terms of content and meaning of the scores, as comparable as possible with longer, well-established inventories such as NEO PI-R and its clones. To do this, we shortened the formerly constructed 60-item “Short Five” (S5) by half so that each subscale would be represented by a single item. We compared all possibilities of selecting 30 items (preserving balanced keying within each domain of the five-factor model) in terms of correlations with well-established scales, self-peer correlations, and clarity of meaning, and selected an optimal combination for each domain. The resulting shortened questionnaire, XS5, was compared to the original S5 using data from student samples in 6 different countries (Estonia, Finland, UK, Germany, Spain, and China), and a representative Finnish sample. The correlations between XS5 domain scales and their longer counterparts from well-established scales ranged from 0.74 to 0.84; the difference from the equivalent correlations for full version of S5 or from meta-analytic short-term dependability coefficients of NEO PI-R was not large. In terms of prediction of external criteria (emotional experience and self-reported behaviours), there were no important differences between XS5, S5, and the longer well-established scales. Controlling for acquiescence did not improve the prediction of criteria, self-peer correlations, or correlations with longer scales, but it did improve internal reliability and, in some analyses, comparability of the principal component structure. XS5 can be recommended as an economic measure of the five-factor model of personality at the level of domain scales; it has reasonable psychometric properties, fair correlations with longer well-established scales, and it can predict emotional experience and self-reported behaviours no worse than S5. When subscales are essential, we would still recommend using the full version of S5.

In Wrong Anticipation – Miscalibrated Beliefs between Germans, Israelis, and Palestinians

The reconcilability of actions and beliefs in inter-country relationships, either in business or politics, is of vital importance as incorrect beliefs on foreigners’ behavior can have serious implications. We study a typical inter-country interaction by means of a controlled laboratory investment game experiment in Germany, Israel and Palestine involving 400 student participants in total. An investor has to take a risky decision in a foreign country that involves transferring money to an investee/allocator. We found a notable constellation of calibrated and un-calibrated beliefs. Within each country, transfer standards exist, which investees correctly anticipate within their country. However, across countries these standards differ. By attributing the standard of their own environment to the other countries investees are remarkably bad in predicting foreign investors’ behavior. The tendency to ignore this potential difference can be a source of misinterpreting motives in cross-country interaction. Foreigners might perceive behavior as unfavorable or favorable differentiation, even though—unknown to them—investors actually treat fellow-country people and foreigners alike.

Asymmetric outside options in ultimatum bargaining: a systematic analysis

We set up a laboratory experiment to investigate systematically how varying the magnitude of outside options—the payoffs that materialize in case of a bargaining breakdown—of proposers and responders influences players’ demands and game outcomes (rejection rates, payoffs, efficiency) in ultimatum bargaining. We find that proposers as well as responders gradually increase their demands when their respective outside option increases. Rejections become more likely when the asymmetry in the players’ outside options is large. Generally, the predominance of the equal split decreases with increasing outside options. From a theoretical benchmark perspective we find a low predictive power of equilibria based on self-regarding preferences or inequity aversion. However, proposers and responders seem to be guided by the equity principle (Selten, The equity principle in economic behavior. Decision Theory, Social Ethics, Issues in Social Choice. Gottinger, Hans-Werner and Leinfellner, Werner, pp 269–281, 1978), while they apply equity rules inconsistently and self-servingly.

Moral Entitlements and Aspiration Formation in Asymmetric Bargaining: Experimental Evidence from Germany and China

Using a unique experimental data set, we investigate how asymmetric legal rights shape bargainers’ aspiration levels through moral entitlements derived from equity norms and number prominence. Aspiration formation is typically hard to observe in real life. Our study involves 15 negotiations from Germany and China. Over the course of the negotiation, bargainers discuss the distribution of an amount of money by alternating offers until they consent or break off. Legal rights are randomly assigned by asymmetric outside options. We videotape and code the in-group discussions. In total, verbal data from 30 groups, 1100 pages of transcripts, and 65 h of discussions are content-analyzed. Our main finding is that strong groups derive and defend moral entitlements from equity concerns with regard to their outside options. They strive for equitable but unequal distributions (e.g., proportional split and split the difference). Moral entitlements materialize in the recorded aspiration levels and final payoffs, which exceed the equal split. By contrast, weak groups aim at equality. Over the course of the negotiation, equity tends to lose, while the prominence of round numbers gains importance. Similarities between the subject pools are found in that equity and prominence are both decisive for the formation of aspiration levels. Chinese negotiations are characterized by long periods of stagnation, only minimal concessions, and the communication of false goals. By contrast, Germans steadily reduce their goals and make concessions.

Ethnicity- and Sex-Based Discrimination and the Maintenance of Self-Esteem

The psychological underpinnings of labor market discrimination were investigated by having participants from Israel, the West Bank and Germany (N = 205) act as employers in a stylized employment task in which they ranked, set wages, and imposed a minimum effort level on applicants. State self-esteem was measured before and after the employment task, in which applicant ethnicity and sex were salient. The applicants were real people and all behavior was monetarily incentivized. Supporting the full self-esteem hypothesis of the social identity approach, low self-esteem in women was associated with assigning higher wages to women than to men, and such behavior was related to the maintenance of self-esteem. The narrower hypothesis that successful intergroup discrimination serves to protect self-esteem received broader support. Across all participants, both ethnicity- and sex-based discrimination of out-groups were associated with the maintenance of self-esteem, with the former showing a stronger association than the latter.

Judgement and Behaviour in the Prisoner's Dilemma: The Impact of Moral and Strategic Considerations

How do people perceive a social dilemma such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma if the problem is framed focusing entirely on monetary incentives – as commonly done in laboratory experiments? Focusing on the involved conflict between strategic and moral incentives, we designed a two-stage experiment to analyse both the subjects’ judgement (Part 1) and their behaviour (Part 2) in such a setting. In Part 1, we elicited the subjects’ preferences over the different outcomes in the Prisoner’s Dilemma from three different perspectives (moral, strategic, overall). In Part 2, conducted some months later, we let them decide on actions in the respective context. The data show that: (a) subjects can differentiate between moral and strategic incentives; (b) overall preferences are often a combination of moral and strategic preferences; (c) the subjects’ expressed preferences over outcomes are closely aligned with specific personal values; (d) actual behaviour in the lab is primarily determined by the subjects’ (pessimistic) first order beliefs. Moreover, the analysis suggests that while subjects have a more complex and, indeed, socially minded view on the incentive structure of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the common focus on monetary incentives and anonymity in economic lab experiments directs judgements and behaviour into a special and not necessarily realistic direction.

Do Good and Talk About It! Disclosure and Reward of Discretionary Kindness

We analyze the consequences of endogenous disclosure of discretionary kind behavior in a two player game with asymmetric information. The first player’s choice set, which is his private information, is randomly determined; he can either behave kindly or unkindly towards the second player (kindness is discretionary) or he is restricted to kind behavior. At some cost, the first player can truthfully inform the second player about the available choice set. We find that first players who behave kindly more often inform the second player if their kindness is discretionary. Endogenously disclosing discretionary kindness significantly triggers second players’ rewards. Our findings are robust towards variations in first players’ costs of disclosure and second players’ payoffs. Behavioral findings translate into a variety of real-world settings.