Abstract
This paper deals with the evidential value of neuroeconomic experiments for the triangulation of economically relevant phenomena. We examine the case of social preferences, which involves bringing together evidence from behavioural experiments, neuroeconomic experiments, and observational studies from other social sciences. We present an account of triangulation and identify the conditions under which neuroeconomic evidence is diverse in the way required for successful triangulation. We also show that the successful triangulation of phenomena does not necessarily afford additional confirmation to general theories about those phenomena.
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Notes
It is now quite customary to distinguish between two versions of neuroeconomics: the use of economic concepts in modelling the way neural systems work and the use of neuroscientific methods to explain behaviour related to economic choice – although the boundary between the two is becoming increasingly vague. Our main concern is with the latter.
This role of neuroeconomic experiments is not limited to establishing the existence of social preferences. Take, for example, loss aversion, a putatively fixed feature of the psychology of decision-making taken to explain many market-level phenomena in the field (Camerer 2000). Additional evidence has been gathered using brain-imaging techniques to support the claim that loss aversion is a stable property of subjective valuation. The rationale, as in the case of social preferences, is that if differences in the activation of reward-related areas are observed that match the observed asymmetric choice behaviour, then this allegedly constitutes independent evidence for the “reality” of loss aversion (see e.g. Rick 2011).
According to Woodward (2009), neural evidence can also help in identifying the conditions under which behaviour is robust to changes. It is important to keep the two notions of robustness separate. In the case of triangulation it is a question of detection robustness, whereas in this case it is phenomenon robustness, in other words the robustness of the phenomenon itself. A non-robust phenomenon can still be detected robustly.
Schupbach (2015) calls this reliability independence.
Here and in the rest of the paper rational-choice theory is intended to encompass the assumption of self-regarding preferences.
See Fehr and Krajbich (2014) for an up-to-date review of the neuroeconomic literature on social preferences.
Ruff and Huettel (2014) distinguish between measurement techniques (e.g. EEG, MEG, PET and fMRI) and manipulation techniques (brain stimulation and lesion studies). Measurement techniques cannot demonstrate that a particular region of the brain is necessary to a given cognitive function.
Ross (2008) uses the label “behavioural economics in the scanner” to refer to neuroeconomic experiments that merely replicate experiments in behavioural economics with the addition of information about the subjects’ brain activity obtained from neuroimaging.
They also point towards developmental evidence that small children exhibit similar tendencies without having the capacity for long-term planning or a developed theory of mind.
The difference between establishing the reality of the laboratory phenomenon and inferring that the phenomenon is exportable outside the laboratory roughly corresponds to the distinction between internal and external validity.
To be precise, Bicchieri’s theory of social norms also implies a different interpretation of social preferences, in other words of how individuals take others’ utilities into account (cf. e.g. Bicchieri and Zhang 2012).
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the participants of the TINT Workshop on Interdisciplinarity in Helsinki (5.12.2013). We would especially like to thank Francesco Guala for his valuable comments.
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Jaakko Kuorikoski and Caterina Marchionni contributed equally to the paper.
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Kuorikoski, J., Marchionni, C. Triangulation across the lab, the scanner and the field: the case of social preferences. Euro Jnl Phil Sci 6, 361–376 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-016-0154-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-016-0154-0