Identity as Information: Perceived Risk-Preference Similarity and Informational Influence in a Laboratory Experiment on Decisions under Risk
In many consequential decisions, people must commit to an option before they can fully evaluate how it will perform for them. They may use other people's choices and experiences in place of direct evidence, but only if those people are seen as relevant counterfactuals. This paper tests whether shared identity affects whose choices people use when payoff information is hidden, preventing direct evaluation of the options. In an incentivized experiment, 226 participants choose between lotteries, first independently and then after observing the previously recorded choices of other participants (referents). Across repeated blocks, I vary whether participants share the referent's gender and whether the lottery probabilities and possible payoffs are visible.
Participants are more likely to copy the referent when these details are hidden, with a larger increase for same-gender referents. This gender pattern is consistent with a perceived-similarity mechanism. Random assignment to a same-gender referent increases perceived similarity in risk preference before any referent choice is revealed, and perceived similarity predicts copying when lottery details are hidden. Together, the gender-matching and perceived-similarity results point to a role for shared identity in informational influence: it shapes whose choices people treat as informative.