The art of auctioning is an ancient one. The concept of competitively bidding for goods has lasted from Roman times, when spoils of war were divvied up around a planted spear, to the 21st century, when the spoils of the loft are sold through eBay. But despite society's familiarity with the concept, people who take part in auctions still behave in a strange way - they tend to overbid, offering more money than what they actually think an object is worth.
Some economists have suggested that people overbid because they are averse to risk. They would rather make spend more money to be sure of a win than to risk making a steal by gambling with a low bid. Others have suggested that it's the element of competition that drives people to overbid - the joy of winning is what they're after. Now, Mauricio Delgado and colleagues from Rutgers University have provided new evidence to show that neither theory is right.
With a combination of brain-scanning and psychological games, they have found that economists who suggested a social competition angle were moving along the right lines. But it's not the joy of winning that's important - it's the fear of losing. People cough up too much because of simple social competition.
Delgado's team (which included Elizabeth Phelps, whose work I have blogged about before) used a brain-scanning technique called functional resonance magnetic imaging (fMRI) to study the brains of 17 volunteers as they played two games - a two-player auction or a single-player lottery.
The auction was a "first-price sealed-bid" game, where players had one chance to put forward a bid for an object of a given value. They would be rewarded accordingly if they successfully outbid a flesh-and-blood rival whom they had previously met. In the lottery, there was no such competition. The volunteers were told both the value of the item and how much they would put forward - all they had to do was to say yes or no. If their suggested bid was higher than a randomly generated figure, they won.
In such games, players tend to overbid and Delgado's recruits were no exception. In about two-thirds of the trials, they offered more money that economic theory would recommend. That's nothing new, but the real interest arose when Delgado compared the scans of the volunteers' brains during rounds where they lost with rounds where they won.
One and only one part of the brain - the striatum - reacted very differently under these circumstances. When players won (regardless of which game they were playing) brain activity in their striatum increased. Losing, on the other hand, evoked different reactions depending on the game - the striatum didn't react when a player lost the lottery game, but activity in this area fell when they were defeated in the auction. In fact, the volunteers with the greatest penchant for overbidding showed the deepest falls in striatal activity when they lost.
This is not the first time that the activity of the striatum has been linked to winning and losing during psychological games, and other studies have revealed that the area plays a role in decision-making and feelings of reward. But in this case, Delgado points out that the players never actually lost any money (or points for that matter) - they only ever lost the auctions themselves. To him, that it's the fear of losing that motivates overbidding rather than the joy of winning; after all, wins triggered similar responses in the striatum in both auctions and lotteries.
Many studies would have stopped there, but Delgado's team were all too aware of the limitations of fMRI scans. In a move that should be encouraged, they didn't draw firm conclusions from their scans but used them as a jumping point for designing more experiments. They played another auction game with another group of volunteers but this time, they wanted to see if they could actually make people overbid even more by bringing the possibility of loss to the forefront of their thoughts.
To do that, they split their recruits into three groups, each of whom played 30 rounds of the auction game. The first "control" group followed the same rules in the earlier experiment. The second "loss-framed" group was given $15 at the start of each round and told that it would be forfeited if they lost. And the third "win-framed" group was told that if they won, they would receive an extra $15. In both of these last scenarios, only the winners get the extra cash so their situations are actually the same. But giving the money before the game emphasises the risk of losing it, while using it as a reward after-the-fact puts the onus on winning it.
Delgado found that people overbid in all three groups, but those in the win-framed group offered more than the controls, and those in the loss-framed group bid even higher still. All in all, the hypothetical auctioneers made the most money out of the loss-framed individuals. The results suggest that the "joy of winning" explanation is wrong. And while they do not directly contradict the idea that risk aversion leads to overbidding, they do show that it cannot be the only answer; after all, the win-framed and loss-framed experiments entailed exactly the same risks, but they made volunteers bid differently.
It seems that Delgado's hypothesis was correct - by making people feel as if they stood to lose something, they had found a way of manipulating them into overbidding further than they normally would.
Reference: Science 10.1126/science.1158860
Image: Auction by Chris 73; figures from AAAS
Brain & Behavior
Comments
Great post. I think there's a difference, though, between bidding "more than economic theory would predict", and bidding "more than what they actually think an object is worth". You could do the first without doing the second, as the optimal bid in a first price auction is less than your actual valuation.
Posted by: Maria | September 25, 2008 4:13 PM
I don't really see the difference between being risk adverse and being fearful of loosing. We all know that risk aversion must have at least one neural correlate, and fear would seem to be a logical choice.
I guess how I would put the study is that if found out that both previous lines of thought had half the answer. We are risk adverse, however, we are primarily risk adverse in social situations.
Posted by: Kevin H | September 25, 2008 5:09 PM
When I bid on ebaY, I bid what the item is worth to me and then go do something else. If I am out bid, the item was worth more to someone else than to me and they should have it. I will occasionally put in a low bid just to make some action on items that are interesting but not particularly wanted. Occasionally I am surprised to win one of these.
Posted by: Jim Thomerson | September 25, 2008 7:43 PM
People bid too much because they don't do their research properly. Bidding $60 for a worn out Chinese machine tool that sells on special new for $20 is just sheer stupidity.
That's all.
Chris P
Posted by: Chris P | September 26, 2008 11:54 AM
It might be interesting to see if there is a difference between live auctions and anonymous silent auctions. I would bet there would be, though in my experience, people often overbid on both.
Mind you, there can be added considerations in some auctions. I like to go to charity auctions. There's an added incentive to overbidding there, because you know the money is going to a good cause. It's a bit like getting a tote bag for pledging money to your local PBS station, only a lot more fun. ;-)
Posted by: Calli Arcale | September 26, 2008 4:30 PM
Like Calli, I tend to overbid at charity auctions knowing the item was donated and where the proceeds will be directed. During the charity auction I am a bold daring loud laughing bidder which entices others to bid, thus driving the bids much higher than the item value but creating a valuable contribution at the event. Winning is inconsequential, the applause and fun is the stimulus. This behavior creates a night of competitions, stimulating even the quiet ones into the fun of bidding.
Ebay auctions are a completely different story. While it is true, if I want the item I will set an initial high maximum bid, I rarely overbid because like Jim, I have already researched the value. There will be another similar item another time.
BUT, if I stumble onto an Ebay item of interest, my bidding is not controllable. I am extremely competitive. I love the competition and the win. The fear of losing is not a variable. I do not look at myself as a looser but as THE winning competitor. I will win, then the interest is completed. Great study.
Posted by: Mary Ann Epperson-Nilson | September 30, 2008 10:18 AM
Was there not an economist during the Cold War years who used to auction dollar bills to his class? The idea was that the highest bidder got the bill, but the highest underbidder had to pay the amount of their bid to the highest bidder. The idea was to model the nuclear arms race.
Bids would move in a predictable manner up to 99 cents. Then, realising the marginal advantage of not coming second, it could quickly spiral out of control, with bids rising over $10. After all, so long as there's a close underbidder, you might come out at a net profit. And if you lose, you truly lose.
Posted by: Amadan | October 1, 2008 9:56 AM