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In many strategic environments with asymmetric information, systematic decision
mistakes can arise from two sources: failures in probabilistic reasoning when updating
beliefs and incorrect strategic inference about opponents’ private information or
choices. Using a sequential belief elicitation design in persuasion games, we experimentally
disentangle and quantify these two reasoning errors. We find that probabilistic
and strategic reasoning errors are comparable in magnitude, largely orthogonal, and
their patterns and overall degree are stable across various settings. These results suggest
that an improved behavioral theory should account for both strategic naivete and
non-Bayesian updating, without significant concern for their interaction.
