IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/soecon/v84y2017i1p52-65.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Smile, Dictator, You're on Camera

Author

Listed:
  • Joy A. Buchanan
  • Matthew K. McMahon
  • Matthew Simpson
  • Bart J. Wilson

Abstract

We investigate the degree to which people in a shopping mall express other‐regarding behavior in the dictator game. Whereas many studies have attempted to increase the social distance between the dictator and experimenter and between the dictator and recipient, we attempt to minimize that social distance between random strangers by video recording the decisions, with the permission of the dictators, to display their image on the Internet. Offers made by dictators are high, relative to other experiments, and a nontrivial number give the entire experimental windfall away. However, a nontrivial number of people keep everything as well.

Suggested Citation

  • Joy A. Buchanan & Matthew K. McMahon & Matthew Simpson & Bart J. Wilson, 2017. "Smile, Dictator, You're on Camera," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(1), pages 52-65, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:84:y:2017:i:1:p:52-65
    DOI: 10.1002/soej.12214
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12214
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/soej.12214?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
    ---><---

    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. Smith,Vernon L., 2008. "Rationality in Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521871358.
    3. Karl Schurter & Bart J. Wilson, 2009. "Justice and Fairness in the Dictator Game," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 76(1), pages 130-145, July.
    4. 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.
    5. Alvin Etang & David Fielding & Stephen Knowles, 2011. "Does trust extend beyond the village? Experimental trust and social distance in Cameroon," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(1), pages 15-35, March.
    6. Thunström, Linda & Cherry, Todd L. & McEvoy, David M. & Shogren, Jason F., 2016. "Endogenous context in a dictator game," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 117-120.
    7. Rigdon, Mary & Ishii, Keiko & Watabe, Motoki & Kitayama, Shinobu, 2009. "Minimal social cues in the dictator game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 358-367, June.
    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. Oxoby, Robert J. & Spraggon, John, 2008. "Mine and yours: Property rights in dictator games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 703-713, March.
    10. 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.
    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. Smith,Vernon L., 2009. "Rationality in Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521133388.
    13. Nicholas Bardsley, 2008. "Dictator game giving: altruism or artefact?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 11(2), pages 122-133, June.
    14. Forsythe Robert & Horowitz Joel L. & Savin N. E. & Sefton Martin, 1994. "Fairness in Simple Bargaining Experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 347-369, May.
    15. Gad Saad & Tripat Gill, 2001. "The effects of a recipient's gender in a modified dictator game," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(7), pages 463-466.
    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. 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).
    2. Anita Kopányi-Peuker & Jin Di Zheng, 2019. ""I" on You: Identity in the Dictator Game," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 19-049/II, Tinbergen Institute.
    3. Miklánek, Tomáš, 2018. "Information Asymmetry and Exposure Effects in Dictator Games," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 29-39.

    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. Joy A. Buchanan & Matthew K. McMahon & Matthew Simpson & Bart J. Wilson, 2016. "Smile, Dictator, You’re on Camera," Working Papers 1061, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    2. Bart J. Wilson, 2012. "Contra Private Fairness," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(2), pages 407-435, April.
    3. Rigdon, Mary & Ishii, Keiko & Watabe, Motoki & Kitayama, Shinobu, 2009. "Minimal social cues in the dictator game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 358-367, June.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Thunström, Linda, 2019. "Preferences for fairness over losses," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    7. Emin Karagözoğlu & Elif Tosun, 2022. "Endogenous Game Choice and Giving Behavior in Distribution Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-32, November.
    8. Tausch, Franziska & Potters, Jan & Riedl, Arno, 2013. "Preferences for redistribution and pensions. What can we learn from experiments?," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 298-325, July.
    9. 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.
    10. Christoph Engel, 2011. "Dictator games: a meta study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(4), pages 583-610, November.
    11. Smith, Vernon L., 2010. "Theory and experiment: What are the questions?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 3-15, January.
    12. 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).
    13. Czap, Hans J. & Czap, Natalia V. & Burbach, Mark E. & Lynne, Gary D., 2018. "Does Might Make Right? An Experiment on Assigning Property Rights," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 229-240.
    14. 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).
    15. 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.
    16. Smith, Alexander, 2015. "On the nature of pessimism in taking and giving games," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 50-57.
    17. Franzen, Axel & Pointner, Sonja, 2012. "Anonymity in the dictator game revisited," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 74-81.
    18. Andreas Bergh & Philipp C Wichardt, 2022. "Mine or ours? Unintended framing effects in dictator games," Rationality and Society, , vol. 34(1), pages 78-95, February.
    19. Lisa Bruttel & Florian Stolley, 2018. "Gender Differences in the Response to Decision Power and Responsibility—Framing Effects in a Dictator Game," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-16, May.
    20. James C. Cox & Vjollca Sadiraj, 2018. "Incentives," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2018-01, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.

    More about this item

    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:wly:soecon:v:84:y:2017:i:1:p:52-65. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2325-8012 .

    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.