Psychology and Experimental Economics: A Gap in Abstraction

ABSTRACT— Experimental economics and social psychology share an interest in a widening subset of topics, relying on similar lab-based methods to address similar questions about human behavior, yet dialogue between the two fields remains in its infancy. We propose a framework for understanding this disconnect: The different approaches the disciplines take to translating real-world behavior into the laboratory create a "gap in abstraction," which contributes to crucial differences in philosophy about the roles of deception and incentives in experiments and limits cross-pollination. We review two areas of common interest—altruism and group-based discrimination—which demonstrate this gap yet also reveal ways in which the two approaches might be seen as complementary rather than contradictory.