Stated Versus Inferred Beliefs: A Methodological Inquiry And Experimental Test

If asking subjects their beliefs during repeated game play changes the way those subjects play, using those stated beliefs to evaluate and compare theories of strategic behavior is problematic. The authors experimentally verify that belief elicitation can alter paths of play in a repeated asymmetric matching pennies game. In this setting, belief elicitation improves the goodness of fit of structural models of belief learning, and the prior beliefs implied by such structural models are both stronger and more realistic when beliefs are elicited than when they are not.