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The endogenous nature of the measurement of social preferences

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Abstract

We present evidence against the standard assumptions that social preferences are stable and can be measured in a reliable, nonintrusive manner. We find evidence that measures of social preferences can affect subsequent behavior. Researchers often measure social preferences by posing dictator type allocation decisions. The social value orientation (SVO) is a particular sequence of dictator decisions. We vary the order in which the SVO and a larger stakes dictator game are presented. We also vary the form of the dictator game. In one study, we employ the standard dictator game, and in the other, we employ a nonstandard dictator game. With the standard dictator game, we find that prosocial subjects act even more prosocially when the SVO is administered first, whereas selfish subjects are unaffected by the order. With the nonstandard dictator game, we find evidence across all subjects that those who first receive the SVO are more generous in the dictator game but we do not find the effect among only the generous subjects. Across both dictator game forms, we find evidence that the subjects who are first given the SVO were more generous than subjects who are given the SVO last. We also find that this effect is stronger among the subjects with a perfectly consistent SVO measure. Although we cannot determine whether the order affects preferences or the measure of preferences, our results are incompatible with the assumptions that social preferences are stable and can be measured in a reliable, nonintrusive manner.

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Notes

  1. Smith (2010) points out, among other things, that experimental economists implicitly assume that an experienced history of subjects, which is neither explicitly nor materially connected to the present, will not affect behavior. This is a strong assumption, regarding which there is little evidence. Here, we test one aspect of this assumption.

  2. For an early example, see Deutsch (1958).

  3. For more on dictator games, see Forsythe et al. (1994), Hoffman et al. (1994), Eckel and Grossman (1996), Ruffle (1998), and Bolton et al. (1998).

  4. See the “Appendix” for a complete description of the SVO items which we use.

  5. Also see Au and Kwong (2004), and Hertel and Fiedler (1994, 1998).

  6. SVO has been used to study behavior in games (Parks 1994; Kramer et al. 1986; Pruyn and Riezehos 2001), the decision to use public transportation (Van Vugt et al. 1996), proenvironmental behavior (Cameron et al. 1998; Joireman et al. 2001), and volunteerism (McClintock and Allison 1989).

  7. See Buckley et al. (2001, 2003), Burlando and Guala (2005), Carpenter (2003, 2005), Cornelissen et al. (2007), Kanagaretnam et al. (2009), and Offerman et al. (1996).

  8. Sonnemans et al. (2006) uses a visual representation of the ring whereby the subject selects their location on the ring with a single click rather than responding to 24 items.

  9. Chen and Li (2009) perform a similar type of analysis when considering the type, or identity, of the other subject.

  10. Brosig et al. (2007) examine the stability of social preferences across an extended period of time and find evidence of stability only among selfish subjects. Carlsson et al. (2012), Matthey and Regner (2011), Sass and Weimann (2012), and Volk et al. (2012) also study the stability of preferences over time. Blanco et al. (2011) do not find evidence of stability of social preferences across simple games. In contrast, de Oliveira et al. (2012) find evidence of consistency between altruistic behavior in the field and in the laboratory.

  11. Schotter et al. (1996) examine the effect of framing on judgements of fairness and is therefore related to endogenous preferences. Eckel and Grossman (2005) find that a strong identity manipulation can induce more cooperation in public goods game. Also, see Bowles (1998), Poulsen and Poulsen (2006), and Isoni et al. (2011) for more on endogenous preferences.

  12. There also exists a strand of literature which examines the role of the environment on play in games. See Bednar et al. (2012), Bednar and Page (2007), Crawford and Broseta (1998), Savikhin and Sheremeta (2012), and Van Hyuck et al. (1993).

  13. The authors describe the effects as a construction of preferences rather than, as we do, endogenous.

  14. For instance, see Bowles (1998), Carpenter (2005), and Poulsen and Poulsen (2006). Also von Weizsäcker (1971) studies a model where past consumption affects present tastes. The author describes this effect as an “endogenous change of tastes.”

  15. For more on the framing effects, see Frisch (1993). For evidence that framing effects can occur in subjects where one would expect otherwise, see Gächter et al. (2009).

  16. See Schwarz (1999) for an overview.

  17. We exluded a single subject because the subject did not complete the study.

  18. The triadic design does not require that each session has a number of subjects which is divisible by three. Within each session, every subject was assigned a subject identification number. After the session, we randomly selected a number between 1 and the number of subjects in the session minus one. We then matched each subject with an Other1 by finding the subject with an identification number which is equal to the original identification number plus the random number. The Other2 was determined to be the subject with the next highest identification number as the Other1. In this way, each subject could be assigned a unique Other1 and Other2, without requiring that the data occur in multiples of three.

  19. See Bohnet and Frey (1999), and Cox and Sadiraj (2012) for other papers with dictator game choices in which some subjects exhibit similar levels of generosity.

  20. Note that Borgloh et al. (2010) also use tobits in order to account for the bounded choice data.

  21. The results are similar, although slightly weaker, if instead we employ a dummy variable indicating that the subject was classified as prosocial by the SVO.

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Acknowledgments

The author thanks I-Ming Chiu, Hans Czap, Sean Duffy, Matt Miller, Jack Worrall, Tetsuji Yamada, and participants of the ESA conference in Washington DC and the IAREP/SABE conference in Halifax for helpful comments. This research was supported by Rutgers University Research Council Grant #202344.

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  1. Department of Economics, Rutgers University-Camden, 311 N. 5th Street, Camden, NJ, 08102, USA

    John Smith

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Appendix

Appendix

  • We asked the following 9 items (from Van Lange et al. 1997) in order to measure the SVO of the subjects.

  • Each of the 9 items has a prosocial answer, a individualistic answer and a competitive answer.

  • Each item is stated in terms of points where 100 points corresponded to \(\hbox{\$}0.02103\).

 

A

B

C

Question 1

 You:

480 points

540 points

480 points

 Other1:

80 points

280 points

480 points

Question 2

 You:

560 points

500 points

500 points

 Other1:

300 points

500 points

100 points

Question 3

 You:

520 points

520 points

580 points

 Other1:

520 points

120 points

320 points

Question 4

 You:

500 points

560 points

490 points

 Other1:

100 points

300 points

490 points

Question 5

 You:

560 points

500 points

490 points

 Other1:

300 points

500 points

90 points

Question 6

 You:

500 points

500 points

570 points

 Other1:

500 points

100 points

300 points

Question 7

 You:

510 points

560 points

510 points

 Other1:

510 points

300 points

110 points

Question 8

 You:

550 points

500 points

500 points

 Other1:

300 points

100 points

500 points

Question 9

 You:

480 points

490 points

540 points

 Other1:

100 points

490 points

300 points

  • The individualistic answers are: 1B, 2A, 3C, 4B, 5A, 6C, 7B, 8A, and 9C.

  • The prosocial answers are: 1C, 2B, 3A, 4C, 5B, 6A, 7A, 8C, and 9B.

  • The competitive answers are: 1A, 2C, 3B, 4A, 5C, 6B, 7C, 8B, and 9A.

  • Van Lange et al. (1997) classifies a subject according to the above labels if six or more items are answered according to the above.

Instructions given to each subject:

  • You are to be anonymously matched with two other people. We refer to the two others as “Other1” and “Other2.”

  • You are to make a series of allocation decisions involving Other1. This means that you are divide a surplus between yourself and Other1. Whatever you do not keep for yourself goes to Other1.

  • Other 1 is to make a series of allocation decisions involving Other2. This means that whatever Other1 does not keep goes to Other2.

  • Other2 is to make a series of allocation decisions involving you. This means that whatever Other2 does not keep goes to you.

  • Therefore the money accruing to you is composed of (a) whatever you do not sent to Other1 and (b) whatever Other2 sends to you.

We depict the relationship by the diagram below:

Note A randomly selected 25 % of the class will actually be paid the amount accruing to them.

Study 1 Dictator Game

You: $10.00

You: $9.75

You: $9.50

You: $9.25

Other1: $0.00

Otherl: $0.25

Otherl: $0.50

Otherl: $0.75

You: $9.00

You: $8.75

You: $8.50

You: $8.25

Otherl: $1.00

Otherl: $1.25

Otherl: $1.50

Otherl: $1.75

You: $8.00

You: $7.75

You: $7.50

You: $7.25

Otherl: $2.00

Otherl: $2.25

Otherl: $2.50

Otherl: $2.75

You: $7.00

You: $6.75

You: $6.50

You: $6.25

Otherl: $3.00

Otherl: $3.25

Otherl: $3.50

Otherl: $3.75

You: $6.00

You: $5.75

You: $5.50

You: $5.25

Otherl: $4.00

Otherl: $4.25

Otherl: $4.50

Otherl: $4.75

You: $5.00

You: $4.75

You: $4.50

You: $4.25

Otherl: $5.00

Otherl: $5.25

Otherl: $5.50

Otherl: $5.75

You: $4.00

You: $3.75

You: $3.50

You: $3.25

Otherl: $6.00

Otherl: $6.25

Otherl: $6.50

Otherl: $6.75

You: $3.00

You: $2.75

You: $2.50

You: $2.25

Otherl: $7.00

Otherl: $7.25

Otherl: $7.50

Otherl: $7.75

You: $2.00

You: $1.75

You: $1.50

You: $1.25

Otherl: $8.00

Otherl: $8.25

Otherl: $8.50

Otherl: $8.75

You: $1.00

You: $0.75

You: $0.50

You: $0.25

Otherl: $9.00

Otherl: $9.25

Otherl: $9.50

Otherl: $9.75

You: $0 and Other1: $10.00

Study 2 Dictator Game

You: $10.00

You: $9.50

You: $9.00

You: $8.50

Otherl: $0.00

Otherl: $1.50

Otherl: $3.00

Otherl: $4.50

Yon: $8.00

You: $7.50

You: $7.00

You: $6.50

Otherl: $6.00

Otherl: $7.50

Otherl: $9.00

Otherl: $10.50

You: $6.00

You: $5.50

You: $5.00

You: $4.50

Otherl: $12.00

Otherl: $13.50

Otherl: $15.00

Otherl: $16.50

You: $4.00

You: $3.50

You: $3.00

You: $2.50

Otherl: $18.00

Otherl: $19.50

Otherl: $21.00

Otherl: $22.50

You: $2.00

You: $1.50

You: $1.00

You: $0.50

Otherl: $24.00

Otherl: $25.50

Otherl: $27.00

Otherl: $28.50

You: $0.00

   

Otherl: $30.00

   

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Smith, J. The endogenous nature of the measurement of social preferences. Mind Soc 11, 235–256 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-012-0110-4

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