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Ala Avoyan is a Assistant Professor at Indiana University.
TOPIC: "How Do Groups Speak and How Are They Understood?"
ABSTRACT: We experimentally study an environment where a group of senders communicates with a receiver through evidence disclosure. Disclosure decisions aggregate group members’ preferences through a given procedure, which we vary across treatments. In line with theoretical results, our experimental evidence establishes a relationship between the aggregation procedure and the receiver’s interpretation of “no disclosure:” the receiver’s beliefs are more skeptical about group members who have more power to enforce disclosure. In turn, these beliefs are justified by differences in groups’ empirical disclosure strategies in each treatment. At the individual level, we show that deviations from the theory are related to the decision-making procedure: senders err towards under- or over-communication, depending on their pivotality, and receivers’ deviations from Bayesian updating are related to the complexity of the procedure.
Zoom link available upon request. Please contact vadams@arizona.edu for information.