Higher-order beliefs in a sequential social dilemma
通过一个四人序贯社会困境实验，发现多数自利且理性的被试的高阶信念不一致，导致实际策略偏离纳什均衡，仅不到10%的被试拥有一致的一阶和高阶信念。
Strategic players must form beliefs about how others will react at future decision nodes. How often do such beliefs form a consistent hierarchy where subjects believe others hold beliefs similar to their own? We introduce a simple four-player sequential social dilemma where actions reveal first and higher-order beliefs. The unique sub-game perfect Nash equilibrium (SPNE) for self-interested players is observed less than 5% of the time, even though our diagnostic treatments show that a majority of our subjects are self-interested, higher-order rational and have accurate first-order beliefs. In our data, strategic play deviates substantially from Nash predictions because first-order and higher-order beliefs are inconsistent for most subjects, that is most subjects believe that other’s beliefs differ from their own beliefs. We construct and operationalize an epistemic model of belief hierarchies to estimate that less than 10% of subjects have consistent first and higher-order beliefs.