This target article is concerned with the implications of the surprisingly different experimental practices in economics and in areas of psychology relevant to both economists and psychologists, such as behavioral decision making. We consider four features of experimentation in economics, namely, script enactment, repeated trials, performance-based monetary payments, and the proscription against deception, and compare them to experimental practices in psychology, primarily in the area of behavioral decision making. Whereas economists bring a precisely defined “script” to experiments for participants to enact, psychologists often do not provide such a script, leaving participants to infer what choices the situation affords. By often using repeated experimental trials, economists allow participants to learn about the task and the environment; psychologists typically do not. Economists generally pay participants on the basis of clearly defined performance criteria; psychologists usually pay a flat fee or grant a fixed amount of course credit. Economists virtually never deceive participants; psychologists, especially in some areas of inquiry, often do. We argue that experimental standards in economics are regulatory in that they allow for little variation between the experimental practices of individual researchers. The experimental standards in psychology, by contrast, are comparatively laissez-faire. We believe that the wider range of experimental practices in psychology reflects a lack of procedural regularity that may contribute to the variability of empirical findings in the research fields under consideration. We conclude with a call for more research on the consequences of methodological preferences, such as the use on monetary payments, and propose a “do-it-both-ways” rule regarding the enactment of scripts, repetition of trials, and performance-based monetary payments. We also argue, on pragmatic grounds, that the default practice should be not to deceive participants.

This article is concerned with the implications of the surprisingly different experimental practices in economics and in areas of psychology relevant to both economists and psychologists, such as behavioral decision making. We consider four features of experimentation in economics, namely, script enactment, repeated trials, performance-based monetary payments, and the proscription against deception, and compare them to experimental practices in psychology, primarily in the area of behavioral decision making. Whereas economists bring a precisely defined ìscriptî to experiments for participants to enact, psychologists often do not provide such a script, leaving participants to infer what choices the situation affords. By often using repeated experimental trials, economists allow participants to learn about the task and the environment; psychologists typically do not. Economists generally pay participants on the basis of clearly defined performance criteria; psychologists usually pay a flat fee or grant a fixed amount of course credit. Economists virtually never deceive participants; psychologists, especially in some areas of inquiry, often do. We argue that experimental standards in economics are regulatory in that they allow for little variation between the experimental practices of individual researchers. The experimental standards in psychology, by contrast, are comparatively laissez-faire. We believe that the wider range of experimental practices in psychology reflects a lack of procedural regularity that may contribute to the variability of empirical findings in the research fields under consideration. We conclude with a call for more research on the consequences of methodological preferences, such as the use of monetary payments, and propose a ìdo-it-both-waysî rule regarding the enactment of scripts, repetition of trials, and performance-based monetary payments. We also argue, on pragmatic grounds, that the default practice should be not to deceive participants.

Cheap talk is shown to facilitate coordination on the unique efficient equilibrium in experimental order-statistic games. This result is roughly consistent with theoretical predictions according to which cheap talk promotes efficient Nash play. The evidence concerning the mechanisms that theory appeals to is mixed: Frequent agreement of messages and actions is consistent with messages being viewed as self-committing. Risk in the underlying game and the absence of self-signaling messages may explain why message profiles are not unanimous. Time-varying message profiles can be interpreted as evidence for players trying to negotiate equilibria and/or trying to rely on secret handshakes.

Coordination games with Pareto-ranked equilibria have attracted major theoretical attention over the past two decades. Two early path-breaking sets of experimental studies were widely interpreted as suggesting that coordination failure is a common phenomenon in the laboratory. We identify the major determinants that seem to affect the incidence, and/or emergence, of coordination failure in the lab and review critically the existing experimental studies on coordination games with Pareto-ranked equilibria since that early evidence emerged. We conclude that coordination failure is likely to be the exception rather than the rule, both in the lab and outside of it.

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Recently, it has been argued that the evidence in social science research suggests that deceiving subjects in an experiment does not lead to a significant loss of experimental control. Based on this assessment, experimental economists were counseled to lift their de facto prohibition against deception to capture its potential benefits. To the extent that this recommendation is derived from empirical studies, we argue that it draws on a selective sample of the available evidence. Building on a systematic review of relevant research in psychology, we present two major results: First, the evidence suggests that the experience of having been deceived generates suspicion which in turn is likely to affect judgment and decision making of a non-negligible number of participants. Second, we find little evidence for reputational spillover effects that have been hypothesized by a number of authors in psychology and economics (e.g., Kelman, 1967; Davis and Holt, 1993). Based on a discussion of the methodological costs and benefits of deception, we conclude that experimental economists' prohibition of deception is a sensible convention that economists should not abandon. AbstraktV odborné literatuře zabývající se výzkumem v humanitních vědách se nedávno objevilo tvrzení, že "podvede-li" experimentátor účastníky experimentu (tj. zatají-li před nimi pravý účel, resp. některé informace o experimentu), nemusí to nutně vést ke ztrátě kontroly nad experimentem. V důsledku toho bylo experimentálním ekonomům doporučováno, aby upustili od faktického zákazu podvodů v ekonomických experimentech, což by jim mělo umožnit využít potenciální výhody tohoto způsobu vedení experimentů. Ačkoliv se tato doporučení do jisté míry opírají o empirické studie, důkazy v jejich prospěch, jak ukazujeme, přehlíží některá dostupná fakta. Systematický průzkum relevantní psychologické literatury vede ke dvěma závěrům. Za prvé, existují důkazy o tom, že nezanedbatelné procento účastníků experimentu, kteří byli podvedeni, se stane podezřívavými vůči dalším experimentům, a to často ovlivní jejich úsudek a rozhodování. Za druhé, je jen málo důkazů pro to, že by podezřívavost vůči experimentátorovi u účastníka experimentu, který byl podveden, mohla ovlivnit i další subjekty. To je v rozporu s předpoklady mnoha výzkumníků v psychologii i ekonomii (např. Kelman, 1967 nebo Davis a Holt, 1993. Zvážení metodologických výhod a nevýhod podvodů v ekonomických experimentech nás nakonec vede k závěru, že zákaz podvodů je rozumnou konvencí, od které by ekonomové neměli upustit.

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