Giving Choices in Dictator Games: Social Information, Motives, and Fairness Preferences

Giving Choices in Dictator Games: Social Information, Motives, and Fairness Preferences

An experimental dictator game has been conducted to examine whether subjects modify their allocation choices when information about the actions of others is provided. Experimental results show that (a) information on their own rank or absolute earnings of other dictators modestly reinforces subjects’ selfishness, (b) the frequency of a zero transfer increases with the knowledge of other subjects’ choices, (c) lower ranked subjects are more likely to give more or less in a new round, (d) the effects of information on rank are not different from those of information on absolute amount, (e) the stronger subjects’ altruism motive and fairness preference, the more they give, while the stronger subjects’ money-seeking motive, the less they give, and (f) money-seeking motive positively contributes to the likelihood of giving constantly zero in every round. The results have implications for future research focusing on distributional choices and social information.

An experimental dictator game has been conducted to examine whether subjects modify their allocation choices when information about the actions of others is provided. Experimental results show that (a) information on their own rank or absolute earnings of other dictators modestly reinforces subjects’ selfishness, (b) the frequency of a zero transfer increases with the knowledge of other subjects’ choices, (c) lower ranked subjects are more likely to give more or less in a new round, (d) the effects of information on rank are not different from those of information on absolute amount, (e) the stronger subjects’ altruism motive and fairness preference, the more they give, while the stronger subjects’ money-seeking motive, the less they give, and (f) money-seeking motive positively contributes to the likelihood of giving constantly zero in every round. The results have implications for future research focusing on distributional choices and social information.