Imagine being a nice guy : a note on hypothetical vs. incentivized social preferences

Christoph Bühren and Thorben C. Kundt

We conducted an experimental study on social preferences using dictator games similar to Fehr et al. (2008). We show that social preferences differ between participants who receive low-stakes monetary rewards for their decisions and participants who consider hypothetical stakes. The results are robust when we control for socio-demographic characteristics and par-ticipants’ risk attitudes. Besides incentives, gender plays an important role for the categoriza-tion of different social preferences.

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Year of publication:	2013
Authors:	Bühren, Christoph ; Kundt, Thorben C.
Publisher:	Marburg : Univ., Dep. of Business Administration & Economics
Subject:	social preferences \| incentive mechanisms \| dictator games \| Soziale Wohlfahrtsfunktion \| Social welfare function \| Spieltheorie \| Game theory \| Experiment \| Altruismus \| Altruism \| Ultimatumspiel \| Ultimatum game \| Anreiz \| Incentives \| Diktatur \| Dictatorship \| Soziales Verhalten \| Social behaviour \| Leistungsanreiz \| Performance incentive \| Gerechtigkeit \| Justice \| Austauschtheorie \| Social exchange theory \| Präferenztheorie \| Theory of preferences \| Neue politische Ökonomie \| Public choice