Promoting helping behavior with framing in dictator games

By Pablo Brañas-Garza. 2007

190 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract A number of recent papers on double-blind dictator games have obtained significant generous behavior when information regarding the recipient or any other social context is provided. In contrast, the lack of information discourages other-regarding behavior and the subject’s behavior closely approximates the game-theoretic prediction based on the selfishness assumption. This paper uses framing to explore the role of helping behavior in dictator games. The whole experiment includes both classroom and regular experiments for the baseline and the framing treatment. To enlarge on the moral costs attached to selfish behavior in the game I included a “non-neutral” sentence at the end of the instructions, which reads, “Note that he relies on you”. The baseline and framed DG are statistically different from each other, indicating that the additional sentence promotes generous-regarding behavior.

Subfields: Safety Research, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3dcfab1f03df34da50fa97786cffda349b9ee350

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In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

What's the right thing to do? Increasing pro-sociality with simple moral nudges (2017, unknown): “Ref (53) found that telling DG dictators to “note that he relies on you” increases donations in the laboratory.”
Experimenter demand effects in economic experiments (2010, unknown): “Example 3 Branas-Garza (2007) investigated the effect, in dictator games, of having (in bold characters and in an emphatic centered position) the following cue: “RE-MEMBER that he is in your hands” (i.e., he relies on you).”
Gender Differences in Altruism: Expectations, Actual Behaviour and Accuracy of Beliefs (2016, unknown): “For this reason, dictators’ donations are taken as a measure of individual’s altruism, or inequity aversion (Fehr and Schmidt (1999); Bolton and Ockenfels (2000); Brañas-Garza (2006, 2007); Charness and Gneezy (2008)).”
The effects of externalities and framing on bribery in a petty corruption experiment (2009, background): “5 Framing effects have been found in prisoners’ dilemma games (Ross and Ward 1996 ;L iberman et al. 2004), public goods games (e.g., Andreoni 1995; Cookson 2000; Rege and Telle 2004), and dictator games (Eckel and Grossman 1996; Branas-Garza 2007 ).”
Dictator games: a meta study (2011, background): “…Muren 2006b; Mittone and Ploner 2006; Rankin 2006; Takezawa, Gummerum et al. 2006; Tan and Bolle 2006; Bekkers 2007; Benenson, Pascoe et al. 2007; Branas-Garza 2007; Broberg, Ellingsen et al. 2007; Brosig, Riechmann et al. 2007; Cappelen, Hole et al. 2007; Chaudhuri and Gangadharan 2007; Fisman,…”