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Eager beavers v. lazy slugs: selection effects in experiments with social preferences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Catherine Eckel ,
Rick K. Wilson Open the ORCID record for Rick K. Wilson [Opens in a new window]  and
Sora Youn
Catherine Eckel*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77845, USA
Rick K. Wilson*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA
Sora Youn*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77845, USA
*
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
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Abstract

We ask whether social preferences measured in subjects who come to the laboratory when invited are systematically different from those of subjects who only respond when an online option is available. Subjects participated in two types of third-party (other–other) dictator games and a trust game, either in the lab or on-line. In the third party dictator games, the dictator divides $20 between two other individuals, one of whom is a member of their in-group. (We also varied types of in-group between a real group and an artificial group.) In the trust game, the first-mover decides how much of the endowment to send to the second-mover. The second-mover receives the amount sent tripled by the experimenter and decides how much to send back to the trustee. Across all the games, we find no statistically significant differences in social preferences measured in-lab and on-line.

Keywords

Online experimentMethodologySocial preferences

JEL classification

C90: General C81: Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data • Data Access
Type
Original Paper
Information
Journal of the Economic Science Association , Volume 10 , Issue 2: Special Issue: Behavioral and Experimental Economics for Innovative Policy-Making (Articles 1 to 3) , December 2024 , pp. 569 - 577
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Economic Science Association 2024.

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