Mind-Reading Ability Predicts Sales Performance: Evidence from Financial Consultants

Abstract

We developed a task to measure how well people read others’ minds in the ultimatum game, performed an artefactual field experiment on 98 financial consultants from a Taiwanese commercial bank, and linked the mind-reading ability measure to administrative data on consultants’ sales performance in the past year. Our results revealed a strong association between the mind-reading ability measure and financial consultants’ sales performance. This association remained after controlling for a rich set of individual characteristics. Our study provides a novel, objective, and quantifiable way to measure an essential social cognition skill that prevails in nearly all economically strategic situations.

Keywords: mind-reading, sales performance, ultimatum game, artefactual field experiment

JEL Classification: C93, D91, J24