Stability of preferences, beliefs, and behavior in strategic and non-strategic situations

Principal Investigator:	Ing. Olga MARTINČÍKOVÁ SOJKOVÁ
Project Number:	IDEG-2021-002
Grant awarded by:	ESF / MŠMT
Term:	2021-2022

CO-INVESTIGATORS:

• Ing. Jaromír KOVÁŘÍK, Ph.D.
• Ing. Martin POLÍVKA, Ph.D.
• Ing. Michael SATÝNEK

PROJECT ANNOTATION:

This project proposes to study whether preferences, beliefs, and behavior are stable over time. A series of classroom
and laboratory experiments with University freshmen would be conducted repeatedly during the whole academic year.
We employ the within-subject design and combination of strategy and direct-response method in classic non-strategic
and strategic experimental protocols. The issues we are interested in the most are social, time, risk preferences, trust,
expectations of others’ behavior, etc., a classic themes in experimental and behavioral economics. We recruit University
freshmen to be able to focus on the transition between high school and the university because the literature reports
that it is the period of significant changes in life (new social environment, new learning methods, new challenges, more
individual responsibility, less control from the adults, etc.). As a result, analyzing this life stage provides the most
challenging test of the classic assumption in economics and certain strands of psychology, namely that preferences and
behavior are stable during one’s adult life. We answer this questions by contrasting the behavioral variables of the
same individuals at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the first academic year.