Seminar

Incentivized Insights:
Experiments with Political Behavior that Actually Matters
Mike Farjam - Hamburg University

Chair: Giovanni Pagano (University of Milan)

12 March 2024, h.14.00
Room A - NASP Graduate School
Via Pace, 10 - Milan 

Abstract

Survey experiments in the social sciences often rely on self-reports, a method especially problematic in political science due to the politicized and polarized context in which opinions are formed and expressed.

This talk introduces a series of experimental designs that incorporate incentives to mitigate self-report biases. Contrasting with economic experiments critiqued for artificial incentive structures that may compromise external validity, these experiments show that the careful integration of incentives can actually help observe more realistic political behavior, while also ensuring the internal validity of the measure.