Abstract
In impunity games proposers, like allocators in dictator games, can take what they want; however, responders can refuse offers deemed unsatisfactory at own cost. We modify the impunity game via allowing offers to condition of another participant’s counterfactual generosity intention. For a given pair of proposer candidates each states, via the strategy vector method, an intended and two adjusted offers: one (possibly) upward adjusted in case the intended offer of the other candidate is higher and one (possibly) downward adjusted in case it is lower. Additionally, each candidate determines an acceptance threshold for the responder role. Only one candidate in each pair is randomly selected and endowed as the actual proposer whose offer is either possibly upward or downward adjusted depending on the counterfactual offer of the other proposer candidate. The endowed proposer of one pair is matched with the non-endowed candidate of another pair in the responder role. The data confirm that counterfactual intentions of others often affect own generosity via substantial and significant average adjustments to the weakest social influence. Overall, offers seem correlated with acceptance thresholds. Furthermore, we find significant gender differences: female participants state lower intended and adjusted offers as well as acceptance thresholds and therefore appear to be less sensitive to social influence.
Highlights
Does one’s own generosity depend on the generosity intention of others? In particular, is generosity adapted when learning that an anonymous other would be more or less generous? In this paper, implementing an impunity game, we confirm conditional generosity as well as systematic gender differences in conditioning behavior even after eliminating most of the well known drivers of social influence based on the ability to observe others’ behavior
Interpreting one’s acceptance threshold as one’s individual reference point, our finding suggests that female participants often offer the “needy” more than what they consider as acceptable for themselves, i.e., anchoring on lower thresholds would explain the lower offers of female participants
Analyzing social influence via an amended impunity experiment without competition in helping has provided robust evidence for the weakest social influence on intrinsic generosity.8. Most participants condition their offers on purely counterfactual intentions of one anonymous other with whom they do not interact, even though a substantial minority of offer profiles is immune to social
Summary
Welcome to our experiment! During this experiment, you as well as the other participants will have to take several decisions. The proposer will be endowed with an initial amount of euros which can be shared with a responder in the experiment. First, you have to decide, individually and independently, how much of your endowment you to want to give to a responder (different from your paired participant) if you will be selected as a proposer. You have to decide, individually and independently, what proposals you will accept if you will be selected as a responder. After all participants have taken their decisions regarding the initial proposal, the updated proposals and the acceptance threshold, the computer will. Note: The computer will not inform you about the initial proposal of the paired participant with whom you interact at the beginning of each round
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