Abstract
We conduct a representative dictator game in which students and random members of the community choose both what charity to support and how much to donate to the charity. We find systematic differences between the choices of students and community members. Community members are much more likely to write in their own charity, community members donate significantly more ($17), on average, and community members are much more likely (32%) to donate the entire $100 endowment. Based on this evidence, it does not appear that student behavior is very representative in the context of the charitable donations and the dictator game.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Ai, C., & Norton, E. (2003). Interaction terms in logit and probit models. Economics Letters, 80, 123–129.
Barchard, K. (2004). The nature and measurement of emotional intelligence abilities: basic dimensions and their relationships with other cognitive ability and personality variables. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 64, 437–462.
Bardsley, N. (2008). Dictator game giving: altruism or artefact? Experimental Economics. doi:10.1007/s10683-007-9172-2.
Bellemare, C., & Kroger, S. (2005). On representative social capital. CIRPEE Working Paper 05-04.
Benz, M., & Meier, S. (2005). Do people behave in experiments as in real life? Evidence from donations. University of Zurich, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics Working Paper No. 248.
Botelho, A., Harrison, G., Hirsch, M., & Rutstrom, E. (2005). Bargaining behavior, demographics and nationality: what can the experimental evidence show? In J. Carpenter, G. Harrison, & J. List (Eds.), Field experiments in economics. Greenwich: JAI Press.
Brunswik, E. (1956). Perception and the representative design of experiments. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Burks, S., Carpenter, J., & Goette, L. (2005). Performance pay and the erosion of worker cooperation: field experimental evidence. Middlebury College Department of Economics Working Paper.
Burns, P. (1985). Experience and decision making: a comparison of students and businessmen in a simulated progressive auction. In V. Smith (Ed.), Research in experimental economics. Greenwich: JAI Press.
Camerer, C. (2003). Behavioral game theory: experiments on strategic interaction. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Camerer, C., & Thaler, R. (1995). Anomalies: ultimatums, dictators and manners. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9, 209–219.
Cardenas, J. C. (2003). Bringing the lab to the field: more than changing subjects. Javeriana University Department of Economics Working Paper.
Carpenter, J., Burks, S., & Verhoogen, E. (2005a). Comparing students to workers: the effects of social framing on behavior in distribution games. In J. Carpenter, G. Harrison, & J. List (Eds.), Field experiments in economics. Research in experimental economics. Greenwich: JAI Press.
Carpenter, J., Verhoogen, E., & Burks, S. (2005b). The effect of stakes in distribution experiments. Economics Letters, 86, 393–398.
Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Odessa: Psychological Assessment Resources.
Dohmen, T., Falk, A., Huffman, D., Wagner, G., Sunde, U., & Schupp, J. (2005). Individual risk attitudes: new evidence from a large, representative, experimentally-validated survey. IZA discussion paper no. 1730.
Eckel, C., & Grossman, P. (1996). Altruism in anonymous dictator games. Games and Economic Behavior, 16, 181–191.
Fehr, E., Fischbacher, U., Rosenbladt, B., Schupp, J., & Wagner, G. (2003). A nation-wide laboratory examining trust and trustworthiness by integrating behavioral experiments into representative surveys. University of Zurich, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics Working Paper #141.
Fong, C. (2005). Empathic responsiveness: evidence from a randomized experiment on giving to welfare recipients. Carnegie Mellon Department of Social and Decision Sciences Working Paper.
Forsythe, R., Horowitz, J., Savin, N. E., & Sefton, M. (1994). Fairness in simple bargaining experiments. Games and Economic Behavior, 6, 347–369.
Gueth, W., Schmidt, C., & Sutter, M. (2007). Bargaining outside the lab: a newspaper experiment of a three-person ultimatum game. The Economic Journal, 117, 449–469.
Harrison, G., & List, J. (2004). Field experiments. Journal of Economic Literature, 42, 1009–1055.
Henrich, J., McElreath, R., Barr, A., Ensminger, J., Barrett, C., et al. (2006). Costly punishment across human societies. Science, 312, 1767–1770.
Hogarth, R. (2005). The challenge of representative design in psychology and economics. Journal of Economic Methodology, 12, 253–263.
Levitt, S., & List, J. (2007). What do laboratory experiments measuring social preferences reveal about the real world?. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21, 153–174.
List, J. (2004). Young, selfish and male: field evidence of social preferences. The Economic Journal, 114, 121–149.
List, J. (2006). Field experiments: a bridge between lab and naturally occurring data. Advances in Economic Analysis and Policy, 6, Article 8.
List, J. (2007). On the interpretation of giving in dictator games. Journal of Political Economy, 115, 482–493.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic Supplementary Material
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Carpenter, J., Connolly, C. & Myers, C.K. Altruistic behavior in a representative dictator experiment. Exper Econ 11, 282–298 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-007-9193-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-007-9193-x