Dictator Game Experiments Research Articles

Evolution of fairness in the dictator game by multilevel selection

The most perplexing experimental results on fairness come from the dictator game where one of two players, the dictator, decides how to divide a resource with an anonymous player. The dictator, acting self-interestedly, should offer nothing to the anonymous second player, but in experimental studies, dictators offer much more than nothing. We developed a multilevel selection model to explain why people offer more than nothing in the dictator game. We show that fairness can evolve when population structure emerges from the aggregation and limited dispersal of offspring. We begin with an analytical model that shows how fair behavior can benefit groups by minimizing within-group variance in resources and thereby increasing group fitness. To investigate the generality of this result, we developed an agent-based model with agents that have no information about other agents. We allowed agents to aggregate into groups and evolve different levels of fairness by playing the dictator game for resources to reproduce. This allowed multilevel selection to emerge from the spatiotemporal properties of individual agents. We found that the population structure that emerged under low population densities was most conducive to the evolution of fairness, which is consistent with group selection as a major evolutionary force. We also found that fairness only evolves if resources are not too scarce relative to the lifespan of agents. We conclude that the evolution of fairness could evolve under multilevel selection. Thus, our model provides a novel explanation for the results of dictator game experiments, in which participants often fairly split a resource rather than keeping it all for themselves.

Keeping others in our mind or in our heart? Distribution games under cognitive load

It has recently been argued that giving is spontaneous while greed is calculated (Rand et al., in Nature 489:427-430, 2012). If greed is calculated we would expect that cognitive load, which is assumed to reduce the influence of cognitive processes, should affect greed. In this paper we study both charitable giving and the behavior of dictators under high and low cognitive load to test if greed is affected by the load. This is tested in three different dictator game experiments. In the dictator games we use both a give frame, where the dictators are given an amount that they may share with a partner, and a take frame, where dictators may take from an amount initially allocated to the partner. The results from all three experiments show that the behavioral effect in terms of allocated money of the induced load is small if at all existent. At the same time, follow-up questions indicate that the subjects' decisions are more impulsive and less driven by their thoughts under cognitive load.

Social preferences and cognitive reflection: evidence from a dictator game experiment.

This paper provides experimental evidence on the relationship between social preferences and cognitive abilities, which we measure using the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT). We elicit social preferences by way of 24 dictatorial situations, in which the Dictator's choice sets include (i) standard Dictator games, where increasing the Dictator's payoff yields a loss for the Recipient, (ii) efficient Dictator games, where increasing the Dictator's payoff also increases that the Recipient's; as well as other situations in which (iii) either the Dictator's or (iv) the Recipient's monetary payoff is held constant. We partition our subject pool into three groups: reflective (scoring 2 or more in the CRT), impulsive (opting twice or more for the “intuitive” but wrong answers in the CRT) and the remainder. We find that impulsive Dictators show a marked inequity aversion attitude, especially in standard Dictator Games. By contrast, reflective Dictators show lower distributional concerns, except for the situations in which the Dictators' payoff is held constant. In this case, reflective Dictators give significantly more.

Surprising gifts: Theory and laboratory evidence

People do not only feel guilt from not living up to others' expectations (Battigalli and Dufwenberg, 2007), but may also like to exceed them. We propose a model that generalizes the guilt aversion model to capture the possibility of positive surprises when making gifts. A model extension allows decision makers to care about others' attribution of intentions behind surprises. We test the model in a series of dictator game experiments. We find a strong causal effect of recipients' expectations on dictators' transfers. Moreover, in line with our model, the correlation between transfers and expectations can be both positive and negative, obscuring the effect in the aggregate. Finally, we provide evidence that dictators care about what recipients know about the intentions behind surprises.

Investigating Donating Behavior Using Hypothetical Dictator Game Experiments

We conduct dictator game experiments to investigate donating behavior by simultaneously examining the time delay when the donee receives the donation and the individual characteristics of the donor. We show that donations decrease as the time delay rises and that gender, education level, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and utilitarianism affect donations independent of the time delay.

Social influence and the adaptation of parochial altruism: a dictator-game experiment on children and adolescents under peer influence

Humans tend to treat the ingroup more favorably than the outgroup. The phenomenon of parochial altruism is commonly observed in experimental studies on the division of valuable goods among people from children to adults in modern and indigenous societies. Relatively little known is how parochial altruism evolves in the presence of social influence. We conducted a dictator-game experiment on children and adolescents in different school classes to assess parochial altruism. Subjects divided an endowment of valuable goods with an ingroup and an outgroup person. We then manipulated the social information of how the ingroup and the outgroup person shared their endowments with each other. Our experiment shows that subjects would modify their giving to the two recipients when receiving the information, suggesting that parochial altruism—the difference in how much the ingroup and the ougroup receive—is subject to modification under social influence. Parochialism, in particular, is reduced when social influence is exerted from the ingroup. Our study suggests the research to take into account the social dynamics of interpersonal influence to understand how norms of parochial altruism evolve.

Shifting Blame? Experimental Evidence of Delegating Communication

Decision makers frequently have a spokesperson communicate their decisions. In this paper, we address two questions. First, does it matter who communicates an unfair decision? Second, does it matter how the unfair decision is communicated? We conduct a modified dictator game experiment in which either the decision maker or a spokesperson communicates the decided allocation to recipients, who then determine whether to punish either of them. We find that receivers punish both the decision maker and the spokesperson more often, and more heavily, for unfair allocations communicated by the spokesperson if there is room for shifting blame. The increased punishment results from the messenger’s style of delivery: spokespersons are more likely than decision makers to express emotional regret instead of rational need. Receivers seem to punish the former style of communication because they view it as an attempt to shift blame. Our results establish more generally that the design of communication schemes shapes relationships among organizational members. Data and the online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2782 . This paper was accepted by Uri Gneezy, behavioral economics.

Observational Learning and Conformity: Experimental Evidence

People often conform to others either pro-socially or self-interestedly. By conducting modified dictator game experiments where subjects observe others’ behaviors, this study analyzes how observational learning influences subjects’ conforming/non-conforming and pro-social/self-interested behavioral changes. The main results are as follows: (1) self-interested conformity was most frequently observed, followed by pro-social conformity, self-interested non-conformity, and pro-social non-conformity; (2) the observational learning induces both pro-social conformity and self-interested conformity; and (3) the observational learning enhances the degree of self-interested conformity, but not pro-social conformity. These results suggest that the subject's utility is increasing in their payoffs and decreasing in the relative social preference.

Exploring the Meaning of Significance in Experimental Economics

Null Hypothesis Significance Testing has been widely used in the experimental economics literature. Typically, attention is restricted to type-I-errors. We demonstrate that not taking type-II errors into account is problematic. We also provide evidence, for one prominent area in experimental economics (dictator game experiments), that most studies are severely underpowered, suggesting that their findings are questionable. We then illustrate with several examples how poor (no) power planning can lead to questionable results.

The effects of the take-option in dictator-game experiments: a comment on Engel’s (2011) meta-study

In this paper, we report a replication of Engel’s (Exp. Econ. 14(4):583–610, 2011) meta-study of dictator game experiments. We find Engel’s meta-study of dictator game experiments to be robust, with one important exception: the coding of the take-option (List in J. Polit. Econ. 115(3):482–493, 2007; Bardsley in Exp. Econ. 11(2):122–133, 2008; Cappelen et al. in Econ. Lett. 118(2):280–283, 2013). While Engel reports this as having no statistically significant effect, in our replications, we find an economically and statistically significant negative effect on giving in line with the relevant literature.

Private virtues, public vices: social norms and corruption

Purpose – Corruption has traditionally been associated with an absence of pro-social norms such as trust and altruism. This paper challenges this view by examining market corruption – one-shot exchange transactions between strangers in the shadow of the law. The paper aims to propose that in the absence of repeat interactions and legal remedies to prevent contractual violations, acts of market corruption will require strong norms of generalized trust and altruism. As such, pro-social norms facilitate, rather than mitigate, market corruption. Design/methodology/approach – The paper utilizes meta-analysis to examine the relationship between pro-social behavior in economic experiments and prevailing corruption levels. Findings – The results from meta-analyses of both trust- and dictator game experiments show positive, significant relationships between pro-social norms and prevailing corruption levels. Research limitations/implications – The findings of the paper suggest the need for further research into the...

Dictator game giving and norms of redistribution: Does giving in the dictator game parallel with the supporting of income redistribution in the field?

The dictator game is a tool for analyzing generosity in a simple experimental environment. The susceptibility of the results to relatively small changes in the experimental design has cast doubt on the interpretation of the game within the framework of the traditional economic theory of preferences. Another concern attached to the game is that patterns similar to those found in experiments are difficult to find outside experiments. Consequently, the recent discussion has ranged over using the dictator game as a tool for investigating social norms rather than as a setting to test the theory of preferences. Any progress in this discussion presupposes more empirical work using various data and taking various theoretical perspectives. This paper contributes to such research by comparing giving in the dictator game with supporting income redistribution in the field. In particular, the paper provides a simple data-analysis of three developed countries (Spain, Sweden and the USA) to find a data pattern similar to data patterns in dictator game experiments. A symmetrical resemblance is found in the case of Sweden, an asymmetrical one in the case of the USA, and a non-resemblance in the case of Spain.

Card Games and Financial Crises

There may be a nexus between card games and financial markets. Akerlof and Shiller (2010) ask whether the decline in the number of bridge players and the growth in the number of poker players may have led to the current bad financial traders’ practices which are responsible for the global financial crisis. The reason is that bridge is a cooperative game generally played without monetary payoffs, while poker is an individualistic game with monetary payoffs. We simulate trust and dictator game experiments on a large sample of affiliated bridge and poker players. We find that bridge players make more polarized choices and send significantly more than poker players as trustors, a result which is reinforced when corrected for risk aversion and dictator giving. Overall, our findings do not reject the hypothesis that bridge practice is associated with a relatively higher disposition to team reasoning and strategic altruism.

A Reproduction and Replication of Engel's Meta-Study of Dictator Game Experiments

In this paper, we reproduce Engel’s (2011) meta-study of dictator game experiments using his data, and then replicate it using our own data. We find that Engel’s (2011) meta-study of dictator game experiments is quite robust. We show that meta-analyses of dictator game experiments depend to an extent on the definition of independent variables and consistent coding of studies. This insight pertains in particular to the take-option, which has produced important questions (Bardsley 2008; List 2007; Guala and Mittone 2010) about the epistemological inferences one can draw from dictator game experiments.

Income earning opportunity and work performance affect donating behavior: Evidence from dictator game experiments

Using dictator game experiments, the authors investigate the effect on donation of the dictator and/or recipient working prior to the dictator donating. We focus on two issues that previous studies have not considered. First, we examine the impact on donating behavior of a difference in endowment caused by the dictator's work performance. Second, we explore donation behavior when the recipient's work does not yield income or affect the dictator's endowment, but the recipient's work performance is made known to the dictator. Experimental results indicate that donating behavior is affected not only by the dictator working, but also by the recipient working. In addition, donating behavior is affected by income level, as determined by the dictator's work performance, and is influenced by the recipient's work performance, two findings not previously reported.

The Effect of Minimal Group Framing in a Dictator Game Experiment

Our study examines the impact of framing of tasks on dictator game choices. We specifically examine the effect of using two different framing of instructions, one of which we deem the charity frame and the other the group frame. The former frames the dictator choice in terms of giving to a randomly matched participant, whereas the latter frames the dictator choice in terms of allocating between the dictator and a randomly matched participant who is referred to as partner. We find that the group framing is associated with significantly higher transfers from the proposer to the recipient in the experiment. Dictators in the group frame transfer on average INR 40 (8 percent of their endowment) more than those in the charity frame. Furthermore, approximately 16 percent of subjects in the charity frame provide equal splits as compared to 42 percent in the group frame. Finally, approximately 8 percent of dictators gave nothing to the recipient in the group frame as compared to almost 18 percent who were purely selfish in the charity frame. The difference due to framing is robust and remains even after controlling for demographic characteristics such as age, gender, family income and educational background. A hurdle regression shows us that the group frame significantly affects the decision to give the recipient a positive amount, but not the amount actually given conditional on the decision to give. Finally, results from logit regressions indicate that the group frame significantly increases the probability of making 50:50 (or higher) offers to the recipient.

Easy come, easy go

A growing number of experimental studies focus on the differences between the lab and the field. One important difference between many lab and field experiments is how the endowment is obtained. By conducting a dictator game experiment, we investigate the influences of windfall and earned endowment on behavior in the laboratory and in the field. We find subjects donate more in both environments if the endowment is a windfall gain. However, although the experimental design was intended to control for all effects other than environment, there are significant differences in behavior between the lab and the field for both windfall and earned endowment. This points to the importance of discussing the context when interpreting both laboratory and field experiment results as well as when conducting replication studies.

Risk versus social preferences under the veil of ignorance

This paper reports experimental evidence from Dictator Game experiments in which subjects choose repeatedly one out of four options involving a pair of monetary prizes, one for them, one for another anonymously matched participant. In some sessions, there is no uncertainty about the player position (i.e., the identity of the best paid agent, constant across all options); in other sessions subjects choose “under the veil of ignorance”, not knowing in advance to which player position they will be eventually assigned, but only that either possibility is equally likely. Finally, we also collect evidence from additional sessions in which the same options correspond to binary lotteries, in which subjects may win the high or the low prize with equal probability, but their decisions do not affect other participants. We frame subjects’ decisions within the realm of a simple mean-variance utility maximization problem, in which the parameter associated to the variance is interpreted, depending on the treatment, as a measure of pure risk aversion, pure inequality aversion, or some combination of the two. Our estimates suggest that we can simply rely on risk aversion to explain subjects’ behavior under the veil of ignorance.

‘Hiding behind a small cake’ in a newspaper dictator game

We conduct an Internet dictator game experiment in collaboration with the popular German Sunday paper “Welt am Sonntag”, employing a wider and more representative subject pool than standard laboratory experiments. Recipients either knew or did not know the size of the cake distributed by the dictator. We find that, in case of incomplete information, some dictators ‘hide behind the small cake’, supporting the notion that some agents’ second-order beliefs directly enter the social utility function.

Responsibility: The tie that binds

People share significantly more money with others in common lab paradigms like the dictator game than they do in real life. What accounts for this difference? Paradigms like the dictator game link each recipient to a single dictator with the implication that each recipient can receive funds from only one person. We argue that this “burden” of responsibility to a single recipient helps to explain high levels of laboratory sharing. In two experiments—a modified dictator game experiment and a charitable giving experiment—participants donated significantly more to others when they were solely responsible for a recipient's outcome than when the responsibility for a recipient was potentially shared. Taken together with past findings from social psychology and experimental economics, the results show how unambiguous responsibility for a single recipient increases generosity.