Control, cost, and confidence: Perseverance and procrastination in the face of failure

Inga Deimen; Julia Wirtz

doi:10.1016/j.geb.2022.03.013

Control, cost, and confidence: Perseverance and procrastination in the face of failure

Inga Deimen^*, Julia Wirtz^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

21 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

We study effort provision and the development of the belief that effort matters over time: a student is uncertain whether she has control over success through her effort or whether success is determined by her innate ability, which she also does not know. In each period, what she can learn about her control and her ability depends on the level of effort she exerts. The student's optimal effort policy in this two-dimensional bandit problem takes the form of a linear belief cutoff rule and typically features repeated switching of the effort level. Moreover, we define perseverance and procrastination as indices for the student's behavior over time and analyze how they are affected by control, cost, and confidence. Finally, we relate our results to findings in educational psychology and discuss policies to foster perseverance and to lower procrastination.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	52 - 74
Number of pages	23
Journal	Games and Economic Behavior
Volume	134
Early online date	11 Apr 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2022.03.013
Publication status	Published - 1 Jul 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thank two anonymous referees, Martin Cripps, Jeff Ely, Johannes Hörner, Nicolas Klein, Ilan Kremer, Christoph Kuzmics, Moritz Meyer-ter-Vehn, Claudio Mezzetti, Konrad Mierendorff, Sven Rady, Ernesto Rivera Mora, Larry Samuelson, seminar participants in Arizona, Bonn, Bristol, and Warwick, as well as the audiences at EEA (Geneva), GAMES (Maastricht), SCW (Lund), Vereinstagung (Augsburg), SFB-TR15 workshop (Bonn) for helpful comments. This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (SFB-TR 15).

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the German Research Foundation ( SFB-TR 15 ).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Inc.

Keywords

Correlated bandit
Optimal experimentation
Perseverance
Procrastination
Locus of control
Mindsets

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10.1016/j.geb.2022.03.013

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Accepted author manuscript, 508 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

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title = "Control, cost, and confidence: Perseverance and procrastination in the face of failure",

abstract = "We study effort provision and the development of the belief that effort matters over time: a student is uncertain whether she has control over success through her effort or whether success is determined by her innate ability, which she also does not know. In each period, what she can learn about her control and her ability depends on the level of effort she exerts. The student's optimal effort policy in this two-dimensional bandit problem takes the form of a linear belief cutoff rule and typically features repeated switching of the effort level. Moreover, we define perseverance and procrastination as indices for the student's behavior over time and analyze how they are affected by control, cost, and confidence. Finally, we relate our results to findings in educational psychology and discuss policies to foster perseverance and to lower procrastination.",

keywords = "Correlated bandit, Optimal experimentation, Perseverance, Procrastination, Locus of control, Mindsets",

author = "Inga Deimen and Julia Wirtz",

note = "Funding Information: We thank two anonymous referees, Martin Cripps, Jeff Ely, Johannes H{\"o}rner, Nicolas Klein, Ilan Kremer, Christoph Kuzmics, Moritz Meyer-ter-Vehn, Claudio Mezzetti, Konrad Mierendorff, Sven Rady, Ernesto Rivera Mora, Larry Samuelson, seminar participants in Arizona, Bonn, Bristol, and Warwick, as well as the audiences at EEA (Geneva), GAMES (Maastricht), SCW (Lund), Vereinstagung (Augsburg), SFB-TR15 workshop (Bonn) for helpful comments. This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (SFB-TR 15). Funding Information: This work was supported by the German Research Foundation ( SFB-TR 15 ). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 Elsevier Inc.",

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doi = "10.1016/j.geb.2022.03.013",

language = "English",

volume = "134",

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TY - JOUR

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T2 - Perseverance and procrastination in the face of failure

AU - Deimen, Inga

AU - Wirtz, Julia

N1 - Funding Information: We thank two anonymous referees, Martin Cripps, Jeff Ely, Johannes Hörner, Nicolas Klein, Ilan Kremer, Christoph Kuzmics, Moritz Meyer-ter-Vehn, Claudio Mezzetti, Konrad Mierendorff, Sven Rady, Ernesto Rivera Mora, Larry Samuelson, seminar participants in Arizona, Bonn, Bristol, and Warwick, as well as the audiences at EEA (Geneva), GAMES (Maastricht), SCW (Lund), Vereinstagung (Augsburg), SFB-TR15 workshop (Bonn) for helpful comments. This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (SFB-TR 15). Funding Information: This work was supported by the German Research Foundation ( SFB-TR 15 ). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Elsevier Inc.

PY - 2022/7/1

Y1 - 2022/7/1

N2 - We study effort provision and the development of the belief that effort matters over time: a student is uncertain whether she has control over success through her effort or whether success is determined by her innate ability, which she also does not know. In each period, what she can learn about her control and her ability depends on the level of effort she exerts. The student's optimal effort policy in this two-dimensional bandit problem takes the form of a linear belief cutoff rule and typically features repeated switching of the effort level. Moreover, we define perseverance and procrastination as indices for the student's behavior over time and analyze how they are affected by control, cost, and confidence. Finally, we relate our results to findings in educational psychology and discuss policies to foster perseverance and to lower procrastination.

AB - We study effort provision and the development of the belief that effort matters over time: a student is uncertain whether she has control over success through her effort or whether success is determined by her innate ability, which she also does not know. In each period, what she can learn about her control and her ability depends on the level of effort she exerts. The student's optimal effort policy in this two-dimensional bandit problem takes the form of a linear belief cutoff rule and typically features repeated switching of the effort level. Moreover, we define perseverance and procrastination as indices for the student's behavior over time and analyze how they are affected by control, cost, and confidence. Finally, we relate our results to findings in educational psychology and discuss policies to foster perseverance and to lower procrastination.

KW - Correlated bandit

KW - Optimal experimentation

KW - Perseverance

KW - Procrastination

KW - Locus of control

KW - Mindsets

UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2022.03.013

U2 - 10.1016/j.geb.2022.03.013

DO - 10.1016/j.geb.2022.03.013

M3 - Article (Academic Journal)

SN - 0899-8256

VL - 134

SP - 52

EP - 74

JO - Games and Economic Behavior

JF - Games and Economic Behavior

ER -

Control, cost, and confidence: Perseverance and procrastination in the face of failure

Abstract

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Keywords

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