No abstract

Self-Regulation through Goal Setting *Goals are an important source of motivation. But little is known about why and how people set them. We address these questions in a model based on two stylized facts from psychology and behavioral economics: i) Goals serve as reference points for performance. ii) Present-biased preferences create self-control problems. We show how goals permit selfregulation, but also that they are painful self-disciplining devices. Greater self-control problems therefore lead to stronger self-regulation through goals only up to a certain point. For severely present-biased preferences, the required goal for self-regulation is too painful and the individual rather gives up. JEL Classification:A12, C70, D91

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post World Net. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. Belief elicitation in economics experiments usually relies on paying subjects according to the accuracy of stated beliefs in addition to payments for other decisions. Such incentives, however, allow risk-averse subjects to hedge with their stated beliefs against adverse outcomes of other decisions in the experiment. This raises two questions: (i) can we trust the existing belief elicitation results, (ii) can we avoid potential hedging confounds? Our results instill confidence regarding both issues. We propose an experimental design that eliminates hedging opportunities, and use this to test for the empirical relevance of hedging effects in the lab. We find no evidence for hedging, comparing the standard "hedging-prone" belief elicitation treatment to a "hedging-proof" design in a sequential prisoners' dilemma game. Our findings are strengthened by the absence of hedging even in an additional non-belief elicitation treatment using a financial investment frame, where hedging arguably would be most natural.JEL Classification: C72, C90, G11

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. Within-subject data from sequential social dilemma experiments reveal a correlation of firstand second-mover decisions for which two channels may be responsible, that our experiment allows to separate: i) a direct, preference-based channel that influences both first-and second-mover decisions; ii) an indirect channel, where second-mover decisions influence beliefs via a consensus effect, and the first-mover decision is a best response to these beliefs. We find strong evidence for the indirect channel: beliefs about second-mover cooperation are biased toward own second-mover behavior, and most subjects best respond to stated beliefs. But when first movers know the true probability of second-mover cooperation, subjects' own second moves still have predictive power regarding their first moves, suggesting that the direct channel also plays a role.JEL Classification: C72, C90