Gary Charness (Economics Department, University of California, Santa Barbara) Luca Rigotti (Fuqua School of Business, Duke University) Aldo Rustichini (University of Minnesota)
Additional information is available for the following
registered author(s):
Social facilitation describes the effect on performance due to the mere presence of others. Here we study the effect of the mere presence of an audience on the behavior of people involved in a strategic interaction and on the performance of institutions. In our laboratory experiment, two active participants play the game and receive payoffs determined by their choices, while inactive participants receive a share of this outcome. In our 2x2 design, bystanders may or not be physically present during play, and active and inactive participants may or not be immediately informed of the outcome of the game just played.We find significant differences in behavior across treatments: When bystanders are present, players are more likely to choose the strategy favorable to the audience. Withholding immediate feedback about play weakens this effect substantially, but not completely. These results suggest that social facilitation extends to strategic environments.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)