Anonymity in the dictator game revisited

Axel Franzen and Sonja Pointner

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2012, vol. 81, issue 1, 74-81

Abstract: Giving in the dictator game has often been interpreted as evidence of other-regarding preferences. We suspect that giving is determined by subjects’ attempts to appear fair in the eyes of recipients and the experimenter. Therefore, we investigate behavior in the dictator game by using the randomized response technique to increase anonymity. Overall, 290 subjects participated in two experiments. The results demonstrate that the randomized response technique reduces giving to negligible amounts compared to the standard double blind condition. Thus, our results suggest that individuals closely follow egoistic motives in the dictator game when anonymity is convincingly implemented.

Keywords: Other-regarding preferences; Fairness; Dictator game; Experimental game theory; Randomized response technique (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C91 D03 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (46)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268111002332
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:81:y:2012:i:1:p:74-81

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2011.09.005

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().