Would I Care if I Knew?: Image Concerns and Social Confirmation in Giving

Alexander Kritikos and Jonathan Tan

No 1439, Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin from DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research

Abstract: This paper experimentally investigates the nature of image concerns in gift giving. For this, we test variants of dictator and impunity games where the influences of social preferences on behavior are kept constant across all games. Givers maximize material payoffs by pretending to be fair when receivers do not know the actual surplus size, implying that portraying an outward appearance of norm compliance matters more than actual compliance. In impunity games, receivers can reject gifts with no payoff consequence to givers. In the face of receivers’ feedback, some givers ensure positive feedback by donating more while some avoid negative feedback by not giving at all. Removing feedback reduces the incentive to give altogether. Differing behavior in the four games implies that social confirmation plays a crucial role in the transmission of image concerns in giving.

Keywords: Dictator; impunity; experiment; image; social confirmation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 C92 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 p.
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-gth, nep-hpe and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Working Paper: Would I Care if I Knew? Image Concerns and Social Confirmation in Giving (2014)
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