IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v122y2014i1p50-54.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender- and frame-specific audience effects in dictator games

Author

Listed:
  • Alevy, Jonathan E.
  • Jeffries, Francis L.
  • Lu, Yonggang

Abstract

We study dictator allocations using a 2×2 experimental design that varies the level of anonymity and the choice set, allowing observation of audience effects in both give and take frames. Changes in the distribution of responses across treatment cells allow us to distinguish among alternative motives as elaborated in recent theory. We observe significant audience effects that vary by both frame and gender. The pattern of responses suggests that heterogeneous concerns for reputation and self-signaling across gender give rise to the contextual effects associated with the give and take frames that have previously been observed in the literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Alevy, Jonathan E. & Jeffries, Francis L. & Lu, Yonggang, 2014. "Gender- and frame-specific audience effects in dictator games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 50-54.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:122:y:2014:i:1:p:50-54
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2013.10.030
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176513004771
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2013.10.030?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hoffman Elizabeth & McCabe Kevin & Shachat Keith & Smith Vernon, 1994. "Preferences, Property Rights, and Anonymity in Bargaining Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 346-380, November.
    2. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Nielsen, Ulrik H. & Sørensen, Erik Ø. & Tungodden, Bertil & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2013. "Give and take in dictator games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 280-283.
    3. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    4. Christoph Engel, 2011. "Dictator games: a meta study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(4), pages 583-610, November.
    5. John A. List, 2007. "On the Interpretation of Giving in Dictator Games," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(3), pages 482-493.
    6. Broberg, Tomas & Ellingsen, Tore & Johannesson, Magnus, 2007. "Is generosity involuntary?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 32-37, January.
    7. Jean Tirole & Roland Bénabou, 2006. "Incentives and Prosocial Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1652-1678, December.
    8. Todd L. Cherry & Peter Frykblom & Jason F. Shogren, 2002. "Hardnose the Dictator," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1218-1221, September.
    9. Bolton, Gary E. & Katok, Elena, 1995. "An experimental test for gender differences in beneficent behavior," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 48(3-4), pages 287-292, June.
    10. James Andreoni & B. Douglas Bernheim, 2009. "Social Image and the 50-50 Norm: A Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Audience Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1607-1636, September.
    11. Eckel, Catherine C & Grossman, Philip J, 1998. "Are Women Less Selfish Than Men? Evidence from Dictator Experiments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(448), pages 726-735, May.
    12. Paul J Zak & Robert Kurzban & Sheila Ahmadi & Ronald S Swerdloff & Jang Park & Levan Efremidze & Karen Redwine & Karla Morgan & William Matzner, 2009. "Testosterone Administration Decreases Generosity in the Ultimatum Game," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(12), pages 1-7, December.
    13. Nicholas Bardsley, 2008. "Dictator game giving: altruism or artefact?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 11(2), pages 122-133, June.
    14. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    15. Dufwenberg, Martin & Muren, Astri, 2006. "Generosity, anonymity, gender," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 42-49, September.
    16. Michael Visser & Matthew Roelofs, 2011. "Heterogeneous preferences for altruism: gender and personality, social status, giving and taking," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(4), pages 490-506, November.
    17. Cameron,A. Colin & Trivedi,Pravin K., 2005. "Microeconometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521848053, October.
    18. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2007. "What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal About the Real World?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 153-174, Spring.
    19. Dana, Jason & Cain, Daylian M. & Dawes, Robyn M., 2006. "What you don't know won't hurt me: Costly (but quiet) exit in dictator games," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 193-201, July.
    20. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    21. Hoffman, Elizabeth & McCabe, Kevin & Smith, Vernon L, 1996. "Social Distance and Other-Regarding Behavior in Dictator Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 653-660, June.
    22. Alexander K. Koch & Hans-Theo Normann, 2008. "Giving in Dictator Games: Regard for Others or Regard by Others?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(1), pages 223-231, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kate Farrow & Gilles Grolleau & Lisette Ibanez, 2017. "Designing more effective norm interventions: the role of valence," Post-Print hal-01680539, HAL.
    2. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Joo Young Jeon & Bibhas Saha, 2014. "Eye-image in Experiments: Social Cue or Experimenter Demand Effect?," University of East Anglia Applied and Financial Economics Working Paper Series 067, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    3. Bonan, Jacopo & Burlacu, Sergiu & Galliera, Arianna, 2023. "Prosociality in variants of the dictator game: Evidence from children in El Salvador," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    4. Korenok, Oleg & Millner, Edward L. & Razzolini, Laura, 2018. "Taking aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 397-403.
      • Korenok Oleg & Edward L. Millner & Laura Razzolini, 2017. "Taking Aversion," Working Papers 1702, VCU School of Business, Department of Economics.
    5. Müller, Stephan & Rau, Holger A., 2015. "Risk-tolerant women donate more than men: Experimental evidence of dictator games," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 264, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    6. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Joo Young Jeon & Bibhas Saha, 2017. "Gender Differences in the Giving and Taking Variants of the Dictator Game," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(2), pages 474-483, October.
    7. Chowdhury, Subhasish M. & Jeon, Joo Young & Saha, Bibhas, 2023. "Eye-image as nonverbal social cue has asymmetric gender effects in dictator taking games," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    8. von Blanckenburg, Korbinian & Tebbe, Eva & Iseke, Anja, 2023. "Giving and taking in dictator games – differences by gender? A replication study of Chowdhury et al. (Southern Economic Journal, 2017)," Journal of Comments and Replications in Economics (JCRE), ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 2(2023-1), pages 1-7.
    9. Andersson, Per A. & Erlandsson, Arvid & Västfjäll, Daniel & Tinghög, Gustav, 2020. "Prosocial and moral behavior under decision reveal in a public environment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 87(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kassas, Bachir & Palma, Marco A., 2019. "Self-serving biases in social norm compliance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 388-408.
    2. Breitmoser, Yves & Vorjohann, Pauline, 2018. "Welfare-Based Altruism," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 89, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    3. Breitmoser, Yves & Vorjohann, Pauline, 2022. "Fairness-based Altruism," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 666, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    4. Emin Karagözoğlu & Elif Tosun, 2022. "Endogenous Game Choice and Giving Behavior in Distribution Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-32, November.
    5. Matteo M. Galizzi & Daniel Navarro-Martinez, 2019. "On the External Validity of Social Preference Games: A Systematic Lab-Field Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 976-1002, March.
    6. Erik O. Kimbrough & Alexander Vostroknutov, 2016. "Norms Make Preferences Social," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 608-638, June.
    7. Thunström, Linda, 2019. "Preferences for fairness over losses," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    8. Hermstrüwer, Yoan & Dickert, Stephan, 2017. "Sharing is daring: An experiment on consent, chilling effects and a salient privacy nudge," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 38-49.
    9. Barmettler, Franziska & Fehr, Ernst & Zehnder, Christian, 2012. "Big experimenter is watching you! Anonymity and prosocial behavior in the laboratory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 17-34.
    10. Boschini, Anne & Muren, Astri & Persson, Mats, 2012. "Constructing gender differences in the economics lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 741-752.
    11. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Joo Young Jeon & Bibhas Saha, 2017. "Gender Differences in the Giving and Taking Variants of the Dictator Game," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(2), pages 474-483, October.
    12. Umer, Hamza, 2020. "Revisiting generosity in the dictator game: Experimental evidence from Pakistan," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    13. François Cochard & Alexandre Flage & Gilles Grolleau & Angela Sutan, 2020. "Are individuals more generous in loss contexts?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(4), pages 845-866, December.
    14. Anna Dreber & Tore Ellingsen & Magnus Johannesson & David Rand, 2013. "Do people care about social context? Framing effects in dictator games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(3), pages 349-371, September.
    15. Franzen, Axel & Pointner, Sonja, 2012. "Anonymity in the dictator game revisited," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 74-81.
    16. Snir, Avichai, 2014. "When choosing to be almost certain of winning can be better than choosing to win with certainty," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 135-146.
    17. Gary Bolton & Eugen Dimant & Ulrich Schmidt, 2018. "When a Nudge Backfires. Using Observation with Social and Economic Incentives to Promote Pro-Social Behavior," PPE Working Papers 0017, Philosophy, Politics and Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    18. Heinz, Matthias & Juranek, Steffen & Rau, Holger A., 2012. "Do women behave more reciprocally than men? Gender differences in real effort dictator games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 105-110.
    19. Lotz, Sebastian & Schlösser, Thomas & Cain, Daylian M. & Fetchenhauer, Detlef, 2013. "The (in)stability of social preferences: Using justice sensitivity to predict when altruism collapses," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 141-148.
    20. Thorsten Chmura & Christoph Engel & Markus Englerth, 2013. "Selfishness As a Potential Cause of Crime. A Prison Experiment," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2013_05, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Dictator game; Anonymity; Gender; Framing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:122:y:2014:i:1:p:50-54. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.