Effects of double-anonymity on pro- and anti-social behavior: Experimental evidence from a lab in the field

Tobias Vorlaufer

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2019, vol. 81, issue C, 216-225

Abstract: This paper examines whether different degrees of subject-experimenter anonymity influence pro- and anti-social behavior in lab-in-the-field experiments. To do this, a Dictator Game (DG) and a Joy-of-Destruction Mini-Game (JoD) were conducted with 480 subjects in rural Namibia. In addition to a strict double-anonymous treatment two single-anonymous treatments are introduced. One of them involves the disclosure of decisions directly to the experimenter. Thereby, it is possible to disentangle the effect of pure double-anonymity from the procedure of the decision-making. The presented results carry relevant implications for a methodologically sound implementation of lab-in-the-field experiments. Both in the DG and JoD, strict double-anonymous procedures do not produce significantly different behavior than under single-anonymity. Whether revealing decisions personally to the experimenter influences individual behavior cannot be consistently answered with the obtained results. The personal disclosure leads to significantly more pro-social and less anti-social behavior in one out of two treatment comparisons. From a conservative perspective, researchers are however advised to assure sufficient privacy for subjects from experimenters during the decision-making process.

Keywords: Field Experiments; Dictator Game; Joy-of-Destruction; Double Anonymity; Experimenter-Demand Effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:81:y:2019:i:c:p:216-225

DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2019.07.001

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