Abstract
Using a laboratory experiment, we collected data on dictator giving among student strangers and married couples in a suburban area in the United States. Confirming common belief and prior empirical evidence, we find that giving among spouses is greater than giving among anonymous students. We further investigated factors associated with spousal giving which may provide insight for the development of future theories, or into explaining other-regarding preferences. Our data shows that giving is positively associated with who manages household money and controls household income. This result is robust after controlling for each spouse’s personal income and using various econometric specifications. The results suggest that spousal giving may be due to household economic roles in addition to other-regarding preferences.
Highlights
Researchers seeking to understand altruistic behavior and social preferences often use the dictator game with real monetary payments to elicit realistic behavior in the laboratory [1]
We collected data on dictator giving among student strangers and married couples in a suburban area in the United States to conduct an exploratory empirical analysis of factors that explain differences in spousal dictator giving
We contribute to this body of knowledge by comparing dictator giving among anonymous students with giving among spouses from a suburban area in the United States
Summary
Researchers seeking to understand altruistic behavior and social preferences often use the dictator game with real monetary payments to elicit realistic behavior in the laboratory [1]. Consistent findings of positive sharing in the dictator game illustrates a deviation from the expectation of pure self-interested behavior [2,3,4]. Explanations of dictator giving has included variations in the context and setup of the game [5], as well as social distance of the participants [6,7,8]. Confirming common belief, dictator giving is typically found to be greater among spouses than with anonymous strangers [9]. Married couples have demonstrated greater cooperation [10], trust [11] and reciprocity [12]. Within-couple differences in giving varies by gender [12,13]
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