11 research outputs found
Do handicaps and feedback affect effort investment of competing teams?
No full textI am investigating the behavior of teams facing a creative effort task, engaging in a competition against another team and, depending on treatment, receiving feedback concerning their own and the other team's handicap. Groups will consist out of two team members who will communicate via video chat. The creative effort task will be based on the american entertainment show 'Family Feud'. In a pre-study, 100 participants are asked 50 questions (like "Name a word, a referee yells at a tennis match."). In the main study, each team faces 10 out of these 50 questions. The 10 questions are selected after the pre-study based on the variance of answers, applying the Gini-coefficient. After sorting all questions by Gini-coefficient, one question from each 5-question-bracket is picked.
In the main study, teams receive one point for each person from the pre-study who selected the same answer on one question.
The handicap for a team can be 'none', 'small' (-40 points) or 'large' (-200 points) and will consist of negative points. The size of handicap is based on the sum of best answers (434 points) and sum of second best answers (218 points). There will be four treatments, three treatments, in which both teams will be informed about their own and the other team's handicap and one treatment, in which both groups will neither know their own nor the other team's handicap. The 3 treatments with full information differ in size of handicap gap
Experimental Evidence on Individual and Collective Decision-Making in Ethical Dilemmas and Unfair Contests
No full textOn social norms and observability in (dis)honest behavior
No full textTransparency and observability have been shown to foster ethical decision-making as people tend to comply with an underlying norm for honesty. However, in situations implying a social norm for dishonesty, this might be different. In a die-rolling experiment, we investigate whether observability can also have detrimental effects. We thus introduce a norm nudge toward honesty or dishonesty and make participants’ decisions observable and open to the judgement of other participants in order to manipulate the observability of people's decisions as well as the underlying social norm. We find that a nudge toward honesty indeed increases the level of honesty, suggesting that such a norm nudge can successfully induce behavioral change. Our introduction of social image concerns via observability, however, does not affect honesty and does not interact with our norm nudge.</p
Honesty of Groups: Effects of Size and Gender Composition
No full textThis paper studies unethical behavior by groups and provides systematic evidence on how lying decisions are affected by group size and group gender composition. We conduct an online experiment with 1,677 participants (477 groups) where group members can communicate with each other via a novel video chat tool. Our key findings are that (i) larger groups lie more, (ii) all-male groups stand out in their proclivity to lie, (iii) already the first female in a group causes an honesty shift, and (iv) group behavior cannot be fully explained by members' individual honesty preferences
Reputational Concern, Norms & Dishonesty
No full textWe are investigating the impact of reputational concerns and social norms on honesty. We measure (dis-)honesty in a behavioral, incentivized die-rolling task, manipulate social norms and induce people's reputational concerns. Participants are matched with three other players, who have already made their decisions in the die-rolling task. They are matched either with three players who behaved all honestly (honest norm conditions) or all dishonestly (dishonest norm conditions). Participants are then presented with the behavior of their three matched participants. As such in the honest norm condition, participants observe their group members behave all honestly, while in the dishonest norm condition, participants observe their group members behave all dishonestly. We further induce reputational concerns by either letting participants make their decisions in private (low reputational concerns condition) or in public of the group members (high reputational concern condition). In the latter condition, participants are aware that the three players who they observed will also observe what they reported and send feedback about their behavior
On Social Norms and Observability in (Dis)honest Behavior
No full textTransparency and observability have been shown to foster ethical decision-making as people tend to comply with an underlying norm for honesty. However, in situations implying a social norm for dishonesty, this might be different. In a die-rolling experiment, we investigate whether observability can also have detrimental effects. We thus introduce a norm nudge toward honesty or dishonesty and make participants' decisions observable and open to the judgement of other participants in order to manipulate the observability of people's decisions as well as the underlying social norm. We find that a nudge toward honesty indeed increases the level of honesty, suggesting that such a norm nudge can successfully induce behavioral change. Our introduction of social image concerns via observability, however, does not affect honesty and does not interact with our norm nudge
chaTree: An oTree Addon Allowing Face-to-Face Communication in Online Group Experiments
No full textThis paper presents an oTree addon that allows to include face-to-face communication in the form of a video chat in online group experiments. Group decisions, as opposed to individual decision-making, have recently gained considerable attention. The open-source addon is easy to use, exhibits a lean design, and allows to record communication patterns. It has already been successfully employed in a number of group experiments. We explain how to implement the addon and provide a number of recommendations for smooth functionality
