An experiment on coordination in a modified stag hunt game

The paper experimentally investigates whether adding a dominated strategy changes subjects’ decisions in a stag hunt decision context. Specifically, we run two two-periods treatments where respectively 1) the decision makers firstly face the standard stag-hunt matrix and then the modified three-options matrix and 2) the decision makers firstly face the modified three-options matrix and then the standard two-options stag-hunt matrix. Given the circumstance that the added strategy is dominated, standard rationality assumption would predict no changes in participants decisions across periods and treatments. On the contrary, our results show that the exposure to one or the other treatment frames the decision-situation in a different way. Decision makers become less propense to take the risk of “hunting stags” in the modified three-options matrix, after they are firstly exposed to the two-options standard stag-hunt matrix. Vice versa, they appear more propense to change their decision towards the payoff dominant equilibrium, when they are firstly exposed to the modified three-options matrix and then to the two-options standard stag-hunt matrix.