Self-selection and variations in the laboratory measurement of other-regarding preferences across subject pools: evidence from one college student and two adult samples

Jon Anderson, Stephen Burks, Jeffrey Carpenter, Lorenz Götte, Karsten Maurer, Daniele Nosenzo, Ruth Potter, Kim Rocha and Aldo Rustichini
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Lorenz Goette

Experimental Economics, 2013, vol. 16, issue 2, 170-189

Abstract: We measure the other-regarding behavior in samples from three related populations in the upper Midwest of the United States: college students, non-student adults from the community surrounding the college, and adult trainee truckers in a residential training program. The use of typical experimental economics recruitment procedures made the first two groups substantially self-selected. Because the context reduced the opportunity cost of participating dramatically, 91 % of the adult trainees solicited participated, leaving little scope for self-selection in this sample. We find no differences in the elicited other-regarding preferences between the self-selected adults and the adult trainees, suggesting that selection is unlikely to bias inferences about the prevalence of other-regarding preferences among non-student adult subjects. Our data also reject the more specific hypothesis that approval-seeking subjects are the ones most likely to select into experiments. Finally, we observe a large difference between self-selected college students and self-selected adults: the students appear considerably less pro-social. Copyright Economic Science Association 2013

Keywords: Methodology; Selection bias; Laboratory experiment; Field experiment; Other-regarding behavior; Social preferences; Prisoner’s dilemma; Truckload; Trucker; C90; D03 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (64)

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Working Paper: Self-Selection and Variations in the Laboratory Measurment of Other-Regarding Preferences Across Subject Pools: Evidence from One College Student and Two Adult Samples (2012)
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DOI: 10.1007/s10683-012-9327-7

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