Social Influence in the Sequential Dictator Game

Abstract

This paper introduces the sequential dictator game to study how social influence may affect subjects' choices when making dictator allocations. Subjects made dictator allocations of $40 before and after learning the allocation made by one other subject in the Relevant Information treatment, or the birthday of one other subject in the Irrelevant Information treatment. Subjects on average become more self-regarding in the Irrelevant Information treatment, but observing relevant information constrains some subjects from moving toward more self-regarding choices. We also find that subjects who exhibit more self-regarding behavior on their first decisions are less likely to change choices between their first and second decisions, and the use of the Strategy Method in this setting does not significantly alter choices. The relationships between our findings and the economic and psychological literature regarding how social influence operates are also explored. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.

Gift exchange and the separation of ownership and control

“…A number of experimental studies finds that the strategy method does not affect subjects' behavior; e.g. Cason and Mui (1998) for a dictator game, Brandts and Charness (2000) for both a chicken and a prisoners' dilemma game, Oxoby and McLeish (2004) for an ultimatum game, Sonnemans (2000) and Bosch-Domènech and Silvestre (2005) for an individual decision making setting and Falk and Kosfeld (2006) for a simplified principal-agent game. This last experiment is closest to ours with respect to the game studied.…”

The strategy method lowers measured trustworthy behavior

“…Previous comparisons of the strategy and game methods reported little differences in choices for some games (e.g., Brandts and Charness, 2000;Cason and Mui, 1998;Oxoby and McLeish, 2004) although not for all (e.g., Brosig et al, 2003). We provide evidence on the trust game, which has become a "workhorse" game in laboratory and field experiments to measure the degree of trusting and trustworthiness of respondents (Berg et al, 1995).…”

Social comparisons and reference group formation: Some experimental evidence

“…This creates a "social norm" (Bohnet and Zeckhauser, 2004;p.496) and, therefore, could trigger the need to conform to it (e.g. Cason and Mui, 1998;Frey and Meier, 2004). Such need is absent in our experiment.…”

“…We would like to observe bargaining outcomes when Y reinforces a fair division of the surplus (Y =40) and as Y moves progressively away from the equal split of the surplus. 7 The empirical literature on social comparisons suggests that, all else equal, an increase in the earnings of one's reference group will lower the individual's utility (see Clark et al 2008). Assuming the non-responder is part of the responder's reference group, as Y increases, the responder's payo¤ decreases relative to that of the nonresponder and hence the reference group.…”

“…They are included at the end of the paper to assist reviewers in evaluating the paper. 7 We chose Y = 40 rather than Y = 50 as previous studies using real-e¤ort tasks to allocate roles in the ultimatum game have shown that most proposers o¤er 40 percent of the surplus rather than 50 percent (Ho¤man et al, 1994). The explanation given is that e¤ort creates property rights over the surplus.…”