Template-type: ReDif-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Panizza, Folco
Author-Name: Vostroknutov, Alexander
Author-workplace-name: RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research, Microeconomics & Public Economics
Author-Name: Coricelli, Giorgio
Title: Meta-Context and Choice-Set Effects in Mini-Dictator Games
Abstract: Knowing that some action is possible in principle, even if not available, could affect behaviour. This may happen because a game is perceived as part of a larger game or ‘metacontext’ that includes its outcomes as a proper subset. In an experiment we test the effects of meta-context and specific choice sets on pro-social behaviour in a series of binary mini-Dictator games by eliciting participants’ normative evaluations, fitting a norm-dependent utility, and analysing the residuals. We find that participants’ normative evaluations in mini-Dictator games derive from the meta-context (a standard Dictator game) and explain a sizeable portion of variance in choices. Restricted choice sets of mini-Dictator games also influence participants’ decisions: they take into account dictator’s losses and recipient’s gains from choosing the prosocial action as fractions of their respective maximum payoffs. This choice-set effect correlates with individual measures of rule-following propensity supporting the idea that it is also normative. Thus, there are two types of normative reasoning that contribute to pro-social behaviour: a meta-context and a choice-set effect.
Classification-JEL: c91,c92,d91
Series: GSBE Research Memoranda
Creation-Date: 20190416
Number: 010
File-URL: https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/ws/files/33635413/RM19010.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 2727079
Handle: Repec:unm:umagsb:2019010
DOI: 10.26481/umagsb.2019010