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In this dissertation, I study the impact of behavioral influences on strategic economic decision making in three essays.The first essay explores the interpersonal implications of guilt aversion in strategic settings. In doing so, I first introduce a stylized 2-player game where one players has an opportunity to induce guilt upon the other player in a manner derived from findings in the psychology literature. I then develop an experimental design, centered around this game, that allows me to test (i) whether agents attempt to induce guilt upon others in self-serving ways, (ii) whether agents are susceptible to the guilt induction of others, and (iii) whether agents are more trusting when they have an opportunity to induce guilt upon others. Furthermore, I theoretically show, via an application of the Battigalli and Dufwenberg (2007) model of simple guilt, that effective guilt induction can be supported as an equilibrium of the game considered.In the second essay, I explore the influence of posted price fairness concerns in bilateral negotiation settings. In doing so, I propose a price fairness model where, in addition to their material payoff, buyers receive disutility from engaging in negotiations, and aggressively negotiating, when the price is fair. As a result, the model predicts that buyers will negotiate less aggressively and possibly even forgo profitable negotiations when the posted price is fair, which is consistent with prior survey evidence on negotiation behavior. I also include a thorough discussion of the differences between the price fairness model and main alternative approaches to modeling fairness that exists in the literature.In the third essay, I experimentally investigate how the decision making quality of an agent's opponent influences learning in strategic games. In particular, I test whether learning-by-doing and learning-by-observing become more effective in games when agents face an optimal decision making opponent. To test these hypotheses, I propose a novel experimental design that enables me to measure strategic decision making quality and control the decision making quality of the opponent.

The improvement of water quality in the streams of the Glenelg Hopkins catchment is a priority of the Glenelg Hopkins regional strategy. A major source of water pollution in the region is linked to agricultural activities as high nutrient levels from runoff have the potential to increase the incidence of blue-green algae in the waterways. Land use change, reduced rainfall, more frequent extreme rainfall events and higher temperatures associated with climate change are likely to exacerbate this trend. Water testing data of the Total Phosphorus (TP) levels in the Hopkins River and at other sites within the Hopkins Catchment indicate increasing incidence of TP above the Environment Protection Authority's target levels for extended periods of each year. Earlier research indicated that phosphorus in runoff increases when pasture fertility increases and that fertiliser management practices should be considered as an element of preventative action for reducing nutrient pollution. During our research, a survey was undertaken in the Hopkins River catchment, to determine the current management of phosphorus (P) fertilisers on grazing and mixed enterprise farms, the attitude of farmers to natural resource management and their understanding of nutrient pollution. The survey also gathered information on the way farmers made fertiliser management decisions. If cooperation relating to phosphorus fertiliser application could be facilitated between groups of farmers, it may be possible to reduce nutrient runoff into the Hopkins waterways. Cooperative game theory has successfully been used worldwide in the resolution of environmental problems where there is an economic impact to the decision making process. In this project, the amount of phosphorus applied per hectare was used in a cooperative game theory model assessing the potential for cooperative action on phosphorus management by groups of farmers, based on the trade off between the economic cost of pollution to the region waterways and the economic production benefits to the individual. The outcome of this work was individual optimal strategies for fertiliser application, allowing individual farmers to reduce their impact of agricultural production on the health of the catchment. Involving the farmer groups, while undertaking the project, raised awareness amongst the farming population of the regional nutrient pollution caused by runoff from agricultural land, and enlisted their assistance towards adopting a cooperative approach to the problem. In addition, the results have been mapped using a Geographical Information System (GIS) for visual presentation and to demonstrate the use of this process in natural resource management with the farmer groups.

The Dirty Faces game requires players to perform iterative reasoning in order to arrive at equilibrium play. The game is dominance solvable with a unique equilibrium when it is correctly specified. The particular payoff structure has significant implication on whether the reasoning process leads to equilibrium play. This paper illustrates that the traditional specification - as used by Weber (2001) - leads to multiple equilibria and the game loses its dominance solvability. We modify the payoff structure and restore uniqueness. The resulting game, which is dominance solvable, is implemented in an experiment to test the depth of iterative reasoning in humans. Our data analysis suggests that some deviation from equilibrium play is due to limited depth of iteration. Additionally, we find evidence that the lack of confidence in other players’ iterative abilities also induces deviations from equilibrium play. / Thesis (M.Ec.) -- School of Economics, 2007

The Dirty Faces game requires players to perform iterative reasoning in order to arrive at equilibrium play. The game is dominance solvable with a unique equilibrium when it is correctly specified. The particular payoff structure has significant implication on whether the reasoning process leads to equilibrium play. This paper illustrates that the traditional specification - as used by Weber (2001) - leads to multiple equilibria and the game loses its dominance solvability. We modify the payoff structure and restore uniqueness. The resulting game, which is dominance solvable, is implemented in an experiment to test the depth of iterative reasoning in humans. Our data analysis suggests that some deviation from equilibrium play is due to limited depth of iteration. Additionally, we find evidence that the lack of confidence in other players’ iterative abilities also induces deviations from equilibrium play. / Thesis (M.Ec.) -- School of Economics, 2007

For centuries, the horror genre has ensnared audiences across generations and genre lines: ballet, opera, literature, poetry, film, and, most recently, video games have all utilized the power of terror to shock, horrify, and, perhaps most disturbingly, attract. But what does fear sound like? This thesis will focus on that question as it explores both the twin worlds of Konami’s survival-horror title Silent Hill and the underwater-nightmare city of Rapture in 2KGames’ 2007 hit Bioshock. Offering a deeper understanding of the agency video game sound employs, this thesis will engage critical gender, race, and feminist theory, confront issues of social and cultural fears evoked through sound, and offer an in-depth analysis of each game’s soundscape in order to discuss the ways video game soundtracks can serve as vehicles for both signifying and unpacking complicated social and political topics that prevail in modern society.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy