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Minimal Social Cues in the Dictator Game

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Author Info
Rigdon, Mary
Ishii, Keiko
Watabe, Motoki
Kitayama, Shinobu

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Abstract

This paper reports results of an incentivized laboratory experiment manipulating an extremely weak social cue in the Dictator Game. Prior to making their decision, we present dictators with a simple visual stimlulus: either three dots in a “watching-eyes” configuration, or three dots in a neutral configuration. The watching-eyes configuration is suggestive of a schematic face—a stimuli that is known to weakly activate the fusiform face area of the brain (Tong, et al., 2000; Bednar and Miikkulainen, 2003; Johnson and Morton, 1991). Given the experimental evidence for automatic priming of watching eyes of others, it is thus reasonable to hypothesize that even though the social cue is very weak, this activation might be sufficient to produce a significant change in social behavior. Our results demonstrate that such a weak social cue does increase giving behavior—even under conditions of complete anonymity—and this difference in behavior across subjects is entirely explained by differences in the choice behavior of males. In fact, males in our treatment condition, who typically act more selfishly than do females in conditions of complete anonymity, give twice as much to anonymous recipients than females give.

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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 8439.

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Date of creation: 26 Mar 2008
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Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:8439

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Related research
Keywords: dictator game social preferences laboratory experiment social distance

Find related papers by JEL classification:
C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

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This page was last updated on 2008-7-25.

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