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  • 2022
  • Working Paper

When Do Individuals Give Up Agency? The Role of Decision Avoidance

By: Holly Dykstra, Christine L. Exley and Muriel Niederle
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:22
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Abstract

A common policy problem is that individuals reject recommended options and insist on making their own choices. Via a large-scale experiment, we document and investigate what factors contribute to this preference for agency. Our main results show that individuals’ willingness to give up their agency increases when they are less determined about what they would choose. Additional results suggest that this is due to the fact that forgoing agency allows them to avoid making decisions.

Keywords

Choice; Decision Making; Policy; Cognition and Thinking

Citation

Dykstra, Holly, Christine L. Exley, and Muriel Niederle. "When Do Individuals Give Up Agency? The Role of Decision Avoidance." Working Paper, October 2022.
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About The Author

Christine L. Exley

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
→More Publications

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    The Gender Minority Gaps in Confidence and Self-Evaluations

    By: Billur Aksoy, Christine L. Exley and Judd B. Kessler
    • 2022
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    The Gender Gap in Confidence: Expected But Not Accounted For

    By: Christine L. Exley and Kirby Nielsen
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    Beliefs About Giving Across Contexts

    By: Christine L. Exley, John-Henry Pezzuto and Marta Serra-Garcia
More from the Authors
  • The Gender Minority Gaps in Confidence and Self-Evaluations By: Billur Aksoy, Christine L. Exley and Judd B. Kessler
  • The Gender Gap in Confidence: Expected But Not Accounted For By: Christine L. Exley and Kirby Nielsen
  • Beliefs About Giving Across Contexts By: Christine L. Exley, John-Henry Pezzuto and Marta Serra-Garcia
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