Belief elicitation in the presence of naïve respondents: An experimental study (original) (raw)

It is often of interest to elicit beliefs from populations that may include naïve participants. Unfortunately, elicitation mechanisms are typically assessed under the assumption that people respond optimally to incentives. Using laboratory experiments with a population that potentially includes naïve participants, we compare the performance of two belief elicitation mechanisms proposed by Karni (2009). These mechanisms, denoted as "declarative" and "clock," are valuable because their incentive compatibility does not require strong assumptions such as risk neutrality or expected utility maximization. We show that, theoretically and empirically, when there is a sufficient fraction of naïve participants, the clock mechanism elicits beliefs more accurately than the declarative mechanism. The source of this accuracy advantage is twofold: the clock censors naïve responses, and participants are more likely to employ dominant strategies under the clock. Our findings hold substantial practical value to anyone interested in eliciting beliefs from representative populations, a goal of increasing importance, for example, when conducting large-scale surveys or field experiments.