The effect of social norms estimation in non-strategic giving: Discarding the role of anchoring and relative incentives

FREIDIN, E.; SENCI, C.M.; RYAN, B.; GREGORIETTI, N.

Wageningen

Congreso; Behavioural Insights in Research and Policy Making; 2016

SABE/IAREP

Background: Social norms seemingly playan ubiquitous role in economic decisions. Here we focus on the fact that participantsthat estimate others? opinions about the socially appropriate behavior in theDictator Game (i.e., the prescriptive norm), then make more generous offers(Krupka & Weber, 2009). Our study attempts to explore whether this resultssurvives after controlling for the effect of factors unrelated to social norms.More specifically, we controlled for the effect of earning prospects. Ourconcern was that participants could become more generous, not because theyrecalled the prescriptive norm, but because they could gain more money in thesession. To control for this we ran two other treatments. First, the standardsocial norms treatment was compared against a treatment in which participantscould gain extra money by accurately guessing others? opinion of amatter unrelated to social norms (Einstein?s death age). Second, we ran atreatment in which participants? guess of the prescriptive norm was notincentivized. Indeed, participants in Einstein treatment were more generous than those in the controltreatment and similarly so than participants in the incentivized social normstreatment. Furthermore, non-incentivized guesses did not lead to offersdifferent from those in the control group. These results cast doubts on theeffect of prescriptive social norms on DG decisions.  Methods: We recruited 110 universitystudents from a variety of disciplines (e.g., economics, biology, education,and engineering, among others) in Bahía Blanca, Argentina.We ran paper-and-pencil sessions during the second semester of 2015 and thefirst semester of 2016 at the Universidad Nacional del Sur. We ran fourtreatments: 1) a baseline control in which participants made their decisions inthe DG without making any prior estimation (n=20); 2) an incentivizedprescriptive norms treatment (n=34) in which participants were incentivized toaccurately estimate previous participants? opinions about the sociallyappropriate behavior in the DG before actually playing the game for real money;3) a non-incentivized prescriptive norms treatment (n=22) similar to theprevious treatment though without the incentive to accurately estimate others?opinions; and 4) the Einstein treatment (n=34) in which, prior to playing theDG, participants could earn extra money if they correctly guessed previousparticipants? estimation of Einstein?s death age.  Results: Participants were moregenerous in the treatment in which they were incentivized to accuratelyestimate previous participants? normative opinions than in the controltreatment (Mann-Whitney U test, Z=2.36, P= 0.018). Participants who were notincentivized for accurately guessing others? opinions showed offers that didnot significantly depart from those of the control group (Mann-Whitney U test, Z=0.94,P= 0.35). Participants who had the chance of earning extra money by guessingothers? estimation of Einstein death age offered higher shares than those inthe control treatment (Mann-Whitney U test, Z=2.10, P= 0.036). Groupingtreatments confirm these results: comparing offers of participants whoestimated social norms (with and without monetary incentives) versus those ofparticipants who did not estimate social norms (base line control and Einsteintreatment) showed no significant differences (Mann-Whitney U test, Z=0.47, P=0.64); whereas comparing offers of participants who were incentivized foraccurately guessing others? opinions (incentivized prescriptive norms andEinstein treatments) versus those of participants without monetary incentivesbefore the DG (base line control and non-incentivized prescriptive normstreatment) showed higher offers in the former than the latter (Mann-Whitney Utest, Z=2.52, P= 0.01). Discussion: In the present study, wecould successfully replicate the effect of prescriptive social norms on DGdecisions (see Krupka & Weber, 2009; Bicchieri & Xiao, 2009). Alike USsamples, Argentine participants made more generous decisions after thinking ofthe prescriptive social norm than in the control treatment without anyestimation prior to the DG. However, present results suggest that the effectstems from the increased monetary prospects brought by the estimation exerciseand not from any specific reference to prescriptive norms. When there were noincentives for estimating norms, participants? offers did not differ from thoseof controls. Furthermore, when participants were incentivized to guess others?opinions of a matter unrelated to norms, they also made higher offers thancontrols. In short, present results suggest that focusing people?s attention onprescriptive norms may not be as effective at encouraging pro-sociality andconformity as had been previously proposed.