No moral wiggles in e5 and e1,000 dictator games under ambiguity

Brañas-Garza, Pablo and Kovářík, Jaromír and Lopez-Martin, Maria del Carmen (2020): No moral wiggles in e5 and e1,000 dictator games under ambiguity.

Abstract

This paper explores excuse-driven behavior in giving. In our powered laboratory experiment, participants play Dictator Games sharing 5e or 1,000e under certainty or ambiguity with a charity. In contrast to previous papers using MPLs {that necessarily introduce additional layers of uncertainty{our subjects participate in two DGs. We �nd no evidence that people use moral wiggles to hide their sel�shness. They share equally out of 5e under certainty and ambiguity and as much out of 1,000e under ambiguity as they do under certainty in the previous literature. These �findings raise the question whether previous results might be an artifact.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Giving, charity, uncertainty, ambiguity, stakes.
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C9 - Design of Experiments > C91 - Laboratory, Individual Behavior; D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D64 - Altruism ; Philanthropy; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D81 - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

References

Abdellaoui, M., Klibano, P., and Placido, L. (2015). Experiments on compound risk in relation to simple risk and to ambiguity. Management Science, 61(6):1306-1322.

Amador, L., Bra~nas-Garza, P., Espin, A., Garcia, T., and Hernandez, A. (2019). Consistent and inconsistent choices under uncertainty: The role of cognitive abilities. Available at MPRA Paper 95178.

Andersen, S., Gneezy, U., Kajackaite, A., and Marx, J. (2018). Allowing for rejection time does not change behavior in dictator and cheating games. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 145:24-33.

Branas-Garza, P., Bucheli, M., Espinosa, M. P., and Garcia-Munoz, T. (2013). Moral cleansing and moral licenses: experimental evidence. Economics & Philosophy, 29(2):199-212.

Brock, J. M., Lange, A., and Ozbay, E. Y. (2013). Dictating the risk: Experimental evidence on giving in risky environments. American Economic Review, 103(1):415-37.

Carpenter, J., Verhoogen, E., and Burks, S. (2005). The effect of stakes in distribution experiments. Economics Letters, 86(3):393-398.

Cettolin, E., Riedl, A., and Tran, G. (2017). Giving in the face of risk. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 55(2-3):95-118.

Dana, J., Weber, R. A., and Kuang, J. X. (2007). Exploiting moral wiggle room: experiments demonstrating an illusory preference for fairness. Economic Theory, 33(1):67-80.

Ellsberg, D. (1961). Risk, ambiguity, and the savage axioms. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 75(4):643-669.

Engel, C. (2011). Dictator games: a meta study. Experimental Economics,14(4):583-610.

Espinosa, M. P. and Kovarik, J. (2015). Prosocial behavior and gender. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 9:88.

Exley, C. L. (2015). Excusing sel�shness in charitable giving: The role of risk. The Review of Economic Studies, 83(2):587-628.

Garcia, T., Massoni, S., and Villeval, M. C. (2018). Ambiguity and excusedriven behavior in charitable giving. Available at SSRN 3283773.

Haisley, E. C. and Weber, R. A. (2010). Self-serving interpretations of ambiguity in other-regarding behavior. Games and Economic Behavior, 68(2):614-625.

Halevy, Y. (2007). Ellsberg revisited: An experimental study. Econometrica, 75(2):503-536.

Kellner, C., Reinstein, D., and Riener, G. (2019). Ex-ante commitments to \give if you win" exceed donations after a win. Journal of Public Economics, 169:109-127.

Kovarik, J. (2015). Risk and knightian uncertainty. In Altman, M., editor, Real-World Decision Making: An Encyclopedia of Behavioral Economics, pages 369-371. ABC-Clio.

Kovarik, J., Levin, D., and Wang, T. (2016). Ellsberg paradox: Ambiguity and complexity aversions compared. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 52(1):47-64.

Leibbrandt, A., Maitra, P., and Neelim, A. (2015). On the redistribution of wealth in a developing country: Experimental evidence on stake and framing efects. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 118:360-371.

List, J. A. and Cherry, T. L. (2008). Examining the role of fairness in high stakes allocation decisions. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 65(1):1-8.

Novakova, J. and Flegr, J. (2013). How much is our fairness worth? the efect of raising stakes on o�ers by proposers and minimum acceptable offers in dictator and ultimatum games. PLoS ONE, 8(4):e60966.

Raihani, N. J., Mace, R., and Lamba, S. (2013). The effect of $1, $5 and $10 stakes in an online dictator game. PLoS ONE, 8(8):e73131.

Slonim, R. and Roth, A. E. (1998). Learning in high stakes ultimatum games: An experiment in the slovak republic. Econometrica, 66:569-596.

Trautmann, S. T. and Van De Kuilen, G. (2015). Ambiguity attitudes. The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Judgment and Decision Making, 1:89-116.

Wakker, P. P. (2010). Prospect theory: For risk and ambiguity. Cambridge University Press.