Self-selection and variations in the laboratory measurement of other-regarding preferences across subject pools: Evidence from one college student and two adult samples

Experimental Economics

Volumn 16, Issue 2, 2013, Pages 170-189

  Anderson, Jon ^a   Burks, Stephen V ^a,b,c   Carpenter, Jeffrey ^b,d   Götte, Lorenz ^b,e   Maurer, Karsten ^f   Nosenzo, Daniele ^c   Potter, Ruth ^a   Rocha, Kim ^a   Rustichini, Aldo ^g,h  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA   (United States)

^b IZA   (Germany)

^c UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

^d MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE   (United States)

^e UNIVERSITY OF LAUSANNE   (Switzerland)

^f Department of Statistics Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence Iowa State University 2438 Osborn Dr Ames   (United States)

^g UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA   (United States)

^h UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Field experiment; Laboratory experiment; Methodology; Other regarding behavior; Prisoner's dilemma; Selection bias; Social preferences; Trucker; Truckload

Indexed keywords

EID: 84876918793     PISSN: 13864157     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10683-012-9327-7     Document Type: Article

References (38)

1. Bellemare, C., & Kroger, S. (2007). On representative social capital. European Economic Review, 51(1), 183-202. http://www. elsevier. com/wps/find/journaldescription. cws_home/505541/description#description.
2. Belot, M., Duch, R., & Miller, L. (2010). Who should be called to the lab? A comprehensive comparison of students and non-students in classic experimental games. University of Oxford, Nuffield College Discussion Papers (2010-001).
3. Burks, S., Carpenter, J., Götte, L., Monaco, K., Porter, K., & Rustichini, A. (2008). Using behavioral economic field experiments at a firm: the context and design of the truckers and turnover project. In S. Bender, J. Lane, K. Shaw, F. Andersson & T. von Wachter (Eds.), The analysis of firms and employees: quantitative and qualitative approaches (pp. 45-106). Chicago: NBER and University of Chicago.
4. Burks, S., Carpenter, J., & Goette, L. (2009a). Performance pay and worker cooperation: evidence from an artefactual field experiment. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 70(3), 458-469. http://www. elsevier. com/wps/find/journaldescription. cws_home/505559/description#description.
5. Burks, S., Carpenter, J., Götte, L., & Rustichini, A. (2009b). Cognitive skills affect economic preferences, social awareness, and job attachment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (USA), 106(19), 7745-7750.
6. Camerer, C. F. (2003). Roundtable series in behaviorial economics. Behavioral game theory: experiments in strategic interaction. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
7. Camerer, C. F., & Fehr, E. (2006). When does "economic man" dominate social behavior? Science, 311(5757), 47-52. doi: 10. 1126/science. 1110600.
8. Cardenas, J. C. (2005). Groups, commons and regulations: experiments with villagers and students in Colombia. In B. Agarwal & A. Vercelli (Eds.), Psychology, rationality and economic behaviour: challenging standard assumptions. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
9. Carpenter, J., & Seki, E. (2011). Do social preferences increase productivity? Field experimental evidence from Fishermen in Toyama Bay. Economic Inquiry, 49(2), 612-630. http://www. blackwell-synergy. com/loi/ecin/.
10. Carpenter, J., Burks, S., & Verhoogen, E. (2005). Comparing students to workers: the effects of social framing on behavior in distribution games. Research in Experimental Economics, 10, 261-290.
11. Carpenter, J., Connolly, C., & Myers, C. (2008). Altruistic behavior in a representative dictator experiment. Experimental Economics, 11(3), 282-298. http://www. springerlink. com/link. asp?id=102888.
12. Cleave, B., Nikiforakis, N., & Slonim, R. (2011). Is there selection bias in laboratory experiments? Institute for the Study of Labor Discussion Papers (#5488), 1-34.
13. Eckel, C., & Grossman, P. (2000). Volunteers and pseudo-volunteers: the effect of recruitment method in dictator experiments. Experimental Economics, 3(2), 107-120. http://www. springerlink. com/link. asp?id=102888.
14. Falk, A., Meier, S., & Zehnder, C. (2012, forthcoming). Do lab experiments misrepresent social preferences? The case of self-selected student samples. Journal of the European Economic Association.
15. Fehr, E., & Gächter, S. (2000). Cooperation and punishment in public goods experiments. American Economic Review, 90(4), 980-994.
16. Fehr, E., & List, J. (2004). The hidden costs and returns of incentives-trust and trustworthiness among CEOs. Journal of the European Economic Association, 2(5), 743-771. http://www. mitpressjournals. org/loi/jeea.
17. Fehr, E., & Schmidt, K. (2006). The economics of fairness, reciprocity and altruism-experimental evidence and new theories. In S. Kolm & J. M. Ythier (Eds.), Handbook of the economics of giving, reciprocity and altruism (Vol. 1, pp. 615-691). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
18. Fischbacher, U. (2007). Z-tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments. Experimental Economics, 10(2), 171-178. http://www. springerlink. com/link. asp?id=102888.
19. Fischbacher, U., & Gächter, S. (2010). Social preferences, beliefs, and the dynamics of free riding in public goods experiments. American Economic Review, 100(1), 541-556. http://www. aeaweb. org/aer/.
20. Fischbacher, U., Gächter, S., & Fehr, E. (2001). Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from a public goods experiment. Economics Letters, 71(3), 397-404. http://www. elsevier. com/wps/find/journaldescription. cws_home/505574/description#description.
21. Gächter, S., Herrmann, B., & Thoni, C. (2004). Trust, voluntary cooperation, and socio-economic background: survey and experimental evidence. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 55(4), 505-531. http://www. elsevier. com/wps/find/journaldescription. cws_home/505559/description#description.
22. Gächter, S., Nosenzo, D., Renner, E., & Sefton, M. (2012, forthcoming). Who makes a good leader? Cooperativeness, optimism and leading-by-example. Economic Inquiry. doi: 10. 1111/j. 1465-7295. 2010. 00295. x.
23. Güth, W., Schmidt, C., & Sutter, M. (2007). Bargaining outside the lab-a newspaper experiment of a three-person ultimatum game. Economic Journal, 117(518), 449-469. http://www. blackwellpublishing. com/journal. asp?ref=0013-0133.
24. Harrison, G., Lau, M., & Rutstrom, E. (2009). Risk attitudes, randomization to treatment, and self-selection into experiments. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 70(3), 498-507. http://www. elsevier. com/wps/find/journaldescription. cws_home/505559/description#description.
25. Henrich, J., Heine, S., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2/3), 1-75. doi: 10. 1017/S0140525X0999152X.
26. Herrmann, B., & Thoni, C. (2009). Measuring conditional cooperation: a replication study in Russia. Experimental Economics, 12(1), 87-92. http://www. springerlink. com/link. asp?id=102888.
27. Hoffman, M., & Morgan, J. (2011). Who's naughty? Who's nice? Social preferences in online industries. University of California, Berkeley (unpublished manuscript).
28. Kocher, M., Cherry, T., Kroll, S., Netzer, R., & Sutter, M. (2008). Conditional cooperation on three continents. Economics Letters, 101(3), 175-178. http://www. elsevier. com/wps/find/journaldescription. cws_home/505574/description#description.
29. Levitt, S., & List, J. (2007). What do laboratory experiments measuring social preferences reveal about the real world? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21(2), 153-174. http://www. aeaweb. org/jep/.
30. List, J. (2004). Young, selfish and male: field evidence of social preferences. The Economic Journal, 114, 121-149.
31. Long, S. J., & Freese, J. (2006). Regression models for categorical dependent variables using Stata (2nd ed.). College Station: Stata Press.
32. Patrick, C., Curtin, J., & Tellegen, A. (2002). Development and validation of a brief form of the multidimensional personality questionnaire. Psychological Assessment, 14(2), 150-164.
33. Rosenthal, R., & Rosnow, R. (1969). The volunteer subject. In R. Rosenthal & R. L. Rosnow (Eds.), Artifact in behavioral research (pp. 61-118). New York: Academic Press.
34. Rustagi, D., Engel, S., & Kosfeld, M. (2010). Conditional cooperation and costly monitoring explain success in forest commons management. Science, 330(6006), 961-965. doi: 10. 1126/science. 1193649.
35. Stoop, J., Noussair, C. N., & van Soest, D. (2009). From the lab to the field: cooperation among fishermen. Munich Personal RePEc Archive (#28924).
36. von Gaudecker, H.-M., van Soest, A., & Wengström, E. (2011). Experts in experiments: how selection matters for estimated distributions of risk preferences. Institute for the Study of Labor Discussion Papers (#5575).
37. Voors, M., Bulte, E., Kontoleon, A., List, J., & Turley, T. (2011). Using artefactual field experiments to learn about the incentives for sustainable forest use in developing economies. American Economic Review, 101(3), 329-333. http://www. aeaweb. org/aer/.
38. Zizzo, D. (2010). Experimenter demand effects in economic experiments. Experimental Economics, 13(1), 75-98.