Imagine Being a Nice Guy: A Note on Hypothetical vs. Incentivized Social Preferences

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 participants’ risk attitudes. Besides incentives, gender plays an important role for the categorization of different social preferences.