Does Experience Affect Fairness and Reciprocity in Lab Experiments?

Tiziana Medda (), Vittorio Pelligra and Tommaso Reggiani ()
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Tiziana Medda: University of Cagliari

No wpC09, CERBE Working Papers from CERBE Center for Relationship Banking and Economics

Abstract: One of the most common criticisms about the external validity of lab experiments in economics concerns the representativeness of participants usually considered in these studies. The ever-increasing number of experiments and the prevalent location of research centers in university campuses produced a peculiar category of subjects: Students with high level of laboratory experience built through repeated participations in experimental sessions. We investigate whether the experience accumulated in this way biases subjects’ behaviour in a set of simple games widely used to study social preferences (Dictator Game, Ultimatum Game, Trust Game, and Prisoner’s Dilemma Game). Our main finding shows that subjects with a high level of experience in lab experiments do not behave in a significantly different way from novices.

Keywords: Experimental Methodology; External Validity; Experience; Lab Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 D03 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2016-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cse, nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-gth, nep-hpe, nep-hrm and nep-soc
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