IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nea/journl/y2018i38p12-47.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measurement of Social Status in Experimental Games

Author

Listed:
  • Bondarenko, O.

    (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia)

  • Zakharov, A.

    (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia)

Abstract

The majority of social and economic interactions take place between people of different social status. Age, position, income and other factors affect the way people evaluate their position in the society. We investigate how self-estimation of the social status is formed when an individual participates in an economic experimental game. In our experiment subjects are set in pairs and play consequently the dictator game, the trust game and the labor market (contract) game. After each game we measure their subjective socioeconomic status using two different scales. We show that participation in the dictator game affects the perception of one's social status to the greatest extent: the status of dictators is higher than the status of recipients. Prescription of roles in other games does not have such an effect. Active behavior, gender, income, etc. also affect the subjective status.

Suggested Citation

  • Bondarenko, O. & Zakharov, A., 2018. "Measurement of Social Status in Experimental Games," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 38(2), pages 12-47.
    • Handle: RePEc:nea:journl:y:2018:i:38:p:12-47
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econorus.org/repec/journl/2018-38-12-47r.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Georg Kirchsteiger & Arno Riedl, 1993. "Does Fairness Prevent Market Clearing? An Experimental Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(2), pages 437-459.
    2. Childers, Terry L & Rao, Akshay R, 1992. "The Influence of Familial and Peer-Based Reference Groups on Consumer Decisions," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 19(2), pages 198-211, September.
    3. James Andreoni & Lise Vesterlund, 2001. "Which is the Fair Sex? Gender Differences in Altruism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 293-312.
    4. Christoph Engel, 2011. "Dictator games: a meta study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(4), pages 583-610, November.
    5. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    6. Bucciol, Alessandro & Cavasso, Barbara & Zarri, Luca, 2015. "Social status and personality traits," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 245-260.
    7. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2007. "What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal About the Real World?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 153-174, Spring.
    8. Berg Joyce & Dickhaut John & McCabe Kevin, 1995. "Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 122-142, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zakharov, Alexei & Bondarenko, Oxana, 2021. "Social status and social learning," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martin Kocher & Matthias Sutter, 2007. "Individual versus group behavior and the role of the decision making procedure in gift-exchange experiments," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 63-88, March.
    2. Erik O. Kimbrough & Alexander Vostroknutov, 2016. "Norms Make Preferences Social," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 608-638, June.
    3. Walkowitz, Gari, 2019. "On the Validity of Probabilistic (and Cost-Saving) Incentives in Dictator Games: A Systematic Test," MPRA Paper 91541, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    5. Bharat Chandar & Uri Gneezy & John A. List & Ian Muir, 2019. "The Drivers of Social Preferences: Evidence from a Nationwide Tipping Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 26380, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. David Masclet & Emmanuel Peterle & Sophie Larribeau, 2012. "Gender Differences in Competitive and Non Competitive Environments: An Experimental Evidence," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes 1 & University of Caen) 201236, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes 1, University of Caen and CNRS.
    7. Walkowitz, Gari, 2021. "Dictator game variants with probabilistic (and cost-saving) payoffs: A systematic test," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    8. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Jaume García-Segarra & Alexander Ritschel, 2018. "The Big Robber Game," ECON - Working Papers 291, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    9. Walkowitz, Gari, 2017. "On the Validity of Cost-Saving Methods in Dictator-Game Experiments: A Systematic Test," MPRA Paper 83309, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Ruth Beer & Hyun-Soo Ahn & Stephen Leider, 2018. "Can Trustworthiness in a Supply Chain Be Signaled?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(9), pages 3974-3994, September.
    11. Murnighan, J. Keith & Wang, Long, 2016. "The social world as an experimental game," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 80-94.
    12. Dirk van Straaten, 2021. "Incentive Schemes in Customer Rating Systems - Comparing the Effects of Unconditional and Conditional Rebates on Intrinsic Motivation," Working Papers Dissertations 71, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    13. Emin Karagözoğlu & Elif Tosun, 2022. "Endogenous Game Choice and Giving Behavior in Distribution Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-32, November.
    14. Sun-Ki Chai & Dolgorsuren Dorj & Katerina Sherstyuk, 2018. "Cultural Values and Behavior in Dictator, Ultimatum, and Trust Games: An Experimental Study," Research in Experimental Economics, in: Experimental Economics and Culture, volume 20, pages 89-166, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    15. Omar Al-Ubaydli & John List, 2016. "Field Experiments in Markets," Artefactual Field Experiments j0002, The Field Experiments Website.
    16. Pamela Jakiela, 2013. "Equity vs. efficiency vs. self-interest: on the use of dictator games to measure distributional preferences," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(2), pages 208-221, June.
    17. Duersch, Peter & Oechssler, Jörg & Vadovic, Radovan, 2012. "Sick pay provision in experimental labor markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 1-19.
    18. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, "undated". "Theories of Fairness and Reciprocity - Evidence and Economic Applications," IEW - Working Papers 075, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    19. Kerschbamer, Rudolf & Müller, Daniel, 2020. "Social preferences and political attitudes: An online experiment on a large heterogeneous sample," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    20. Nicole M. Baran & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2010. "Can we infer social preferences from the lab? Evidence from the trust game," NBER Working Papers 15654, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    social status; game theory; dictator game; group behavior;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nea:journl:y:2018:i:38:p:12-47. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Alexey Tcharykov (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nearuea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.