Anchoring Effects and Participant Numbers: Evidence from a Public Good Game

Abstract

Objective Irrelevant information, such as one's Social Security number, has been shown to influence decisions in experiments. The objective of this article is to investigate this anchoring effect with respect to the randomly assigned participant number in an economic experiment. Methods The game is a public good contribution game. In one session, participants write their participant number on their decision sheet while this number is printed on the decision sheet in the remaining sessions. Anchoring with respect to participant number suggests that those with higher participant numbers contribute more than those with low participant numbers. Results I find no evidence of anchoring. In each session, the mean contribution is not significantly different across different partitioning of the subjects according to participant numbers. Conclusions Social scientists using experimental methods in research are unlikely to bias results by assigning participant numbers when these numbers coincide with the decision space of the games played.