Let Me See You! A Video Experiment on the SocialDimension of Risk Preferences

Previous studies have shown that decision makers are less other-regardingwhen their own payoff is risky than when it is sure. Empirical observationsalso indicate that people care more about identifiable than unidentifiableothers. In this paper, we report on an experiment designed to explorewhether rendering the other identifiable ¡ via a short speechless video ¡ can affect the relation between other-regarding concerns and attitudes towardsocial risk. For this sake, we elicit risk attitudes under two treatmentsdiffering in whether the actor can see the other or not. We findthat seeing the other does not affect behavior significantly: regardless ofthe treatment, individuals are mainly self-oriented as to social allocationof risk, though they are other-regarding with respect to expected payofflevels.