Social information and selfishness
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Jan Potters; Yilong Xu
- Source
- Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 177, 327-340. Elsevier Science BV
- Subject
- Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
Economics and Econometrics
media_common.quotation_subject
05 social sciences
TheoryofComputation_GENERAL
Social learning
Transparency (behavior)
Entitlement (fair division)
Social Learning
Microeconomics
Dictator game
Image concerns
Information
0502 economics and business
Dictator
Economics
Selfishness
050207 economics
Social information
050205 econometrics
media_common
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 0167-2681
When decision makers are informed about the decisions of their peers, does this make them more selfish or more generous? We study the effect of social information on selfishness (as measured by dictator game giving) in a twice-repeated setting. We vary whether or not dictators receive information about the allocation decisions of other dictators. Independently we vary whether being the dictator is determined randomly or earned. We find that dictators act more generously in the first round with than without social information in case dictator positions are randomly assigned; no such effect is found in case dictators’ positions are earned. Allocations in the second round are generally more selfish than those in the first round. This effect is significantly stronger with than without social information, indicating that being informed about the decisions of their peers makes dictators more selfish. These results indicate that transparency about allocation decisions is unlikely to make such decisions more generous.