We present clean evidence of a direct social context effect on behavior in a laboratory experiment: the gender composition of the room significantly alters the risk decisions of subjects even when the actions or presence of others are neither payoff nor information relevant. Our design is such...

Negative campaigning is a recurring feature of political competition, though its persistence is puzzling in light of research showing that the public dislikes it. Why do candidates risk alienating voters by going negative? One answer may lie in the large empirical literature on persuasion...

We investigate the consistency and stability of individual risk preferences by slightly manipulating the cognitive resources of subjects through sleepiness. Participants are recruited and randomly assigned to an experiment session at a preferred time of day relative to their diurnal preference...