IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-12-00140.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The relevance of irrelevant information in the dictator game

Author

Listed:
  • Abhijit Ramalingam

    (School of Economics, University of East Anglia)

Abstract

We examine the sensitivity of the dictator game to information provided to subjects. We investigate if individuals internalize completely irrelevant information about players when making allocation decisions. Subjects are provided with their score and the scores of recipients on a quiz prior to making decisions in multiple dictator games. Quiz scores have no bearing on the game or on players' endowments and hence represent extraneous information. We find that dictators reward good performance on the quiz. We find that information that is irrelevant for the game might nevertheless be relevant for choices. Our results highlight the extreme sensitivity of the dictator game to information and context.

Suggested Citation

  • Abhijit Ramalingam, 2012. "The relevance of irrelevant information in the dictator game," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(1), pages 746-754.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-12-00140
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2012/Volume32/EB-12-V32-I1-P69.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hoffman Elizabeth & McCabe Kevin & Shachat Keith & Smith Vernon, 1994. "Preferences, Property Rights, and Anonymity in Bargaining Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 346-380, November.
    2. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J., 1996. "Altruism in Anonymous Dictator Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 181-191, October.
    3. John A. List, 2007. "On the Interpretation of Giving in Dictator Games," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(3), pages 482-493.
    4. Branas-Garza, Pablo, 2006. "Poverty in dictator games: Awakening solidarity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 306-320, July.
    5. Christina M. Fong, 2007. "Evidence from an Experiment on Charity to Welfare Recipients: Reciprocity, Altruism and the Empathic Responsiveness Hypothesis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(522), pages 1008-1024, July.
    6. Ruffle, Bradley J., 1998. "More Is Better, But Fair Is Fair: Tipping in Dictator and Ultimatum Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 247-265, May.
    7. Oxoby, Robert J. & Spraggon, John, 2008. "Mine and yours: Property rights in dictator games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 703-713, March.
    8. Eckel, Catherine C & Grossman, Philip J, 1998. "Are Women Less Selfish Than Men? Evidence from Dictator Experiments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(448), pages 726-735, May.
    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. Doñate-Buendía, Anabel & García-Gallego, Aurora & Petrović, Marko, 2022. "Gender and other moderators of giving in the dictator game: A meta-analysis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 280-301.

    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. Thorsten Chmura & Christoph Engel & Markus Englerth, 2013. "Selfishness As a Potential Cause of Crime. A Prison Experiment," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2013_05, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    2. Rigdon, Mary & Ishii, Keiko & Watabe, Motoki & Kitayama, Shinobu, 2009. "Minimal social cues in the dictator game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 358-367, June.
    3. Umer, Hamza, 2020. "Revisiting generosity in the dictator game: Experimental evidence from Pakistan," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    4. Bohmann, Sandra & Kalleitner, Fabian, 2023. "Subjective Inequity Aversion: Unfair Inequality, Subjective Well-Being, and Preferences for Redistribution," SocArXiv g8arw, Center for Open Science.
    5. Tausch, Franziska & Potters, Jan & Riedl, Arno, 2013. "Preferences for redistribution and pensions. What can we learn from experiments?," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 298-325, July.
    6. François Cochard & Alexandre Flage & Gilles Grolleau & Angela Sutan, 2020. "Are individuals more generous in loss contexts?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(4), pages 845-866, December.
    7. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Cobo-Reyes, Ramón & Espinosa, María Paz & Jiménez, Natalia & Kovárík, Jaromír & Ponti, Giovanni, 2010. "Altruism and social integration," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 249-257, July.
    8. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Bucheli, Marisa & Espinosa, María Paz, 2020. "Altruism and information," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    9. Cherry, Todd L. & Shogren, Jason F., 2008. "Self-interest, sympathy and the origin of endowments," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 69-72, October.
    10. Fernando Aguiar & Pablo Branas-Garza & Luis M. Miller, 2007. "Moral Distance and Moral Motivations in Dictator Games," Jena Economics Research Papers 2007-047, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    11. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Cobo-Reyes, Ramón & Espinosa, María Paz & Jiménez, Natalia & Kovárík, Jaromír & Ponti, Giovanni, 2010. "Altruism and social integration," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 249-257, July.
      • Brañas Garza, Pablo & Cobo Reyes, Ramón & Espinosa Alejos, María Paz & Jiménez, Natalia & Kovarik, Jaromir & Ponti, Giovanni, 2009. "Altruism and Social Integration," DFAEII Working Papers 6414, University of the Basque Country - Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II.
      • Brañas Garza, Pablo & Cobo Reyes, Ramón & Espinosa Alejos, María Paz & Jiménez, Natalia & Kovarik, Jaromir & Ponti, Giovanni, 2009. "Altruism and Social Integration," IKERLANAK 6414, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I.
    12. Franzen, Axel & Pointner, Sonja, 2012. "Anonymity in the dictator game revisited," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 74-81.
    13. Tammi, Timo, 2013. "Dictator game giving and norms of redistribution: Does giving in the dictator game parallel with the supporting of income redistribution in the field?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 44-48.
    14. David Reinstein & Gerhard Riener, 2012. "Decomposing desert and tangibility effects in a charitable giving experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(1), pages 229-240, March.
    15. Emin Karagözoğlu & Elif Tosun, 2022. "Endogenous Game Choice and Giving Behavior in Distribution Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-32, November.
    16. James C. Cox & Vjollca Sadiraj, 2018. "Incentives," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2018-01, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    17. Heinz, Matthias & Juranek, Steffen & Rau, Holger A., 2012. "Do women behave more reciprocally than men? Gender differences in real effort dictator games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 105-110.
    18. Tonin, Mirco & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2017. "Sharing one’s fortune? An experimental study on earned income and giving," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 112-118.
    19. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Joo Young Jeon & Bibhas Saha, 2017. "Gender Differences in the Giving and Taking Variants of the Dictator Game," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(2), pages 474-483, October.
    20. David B. Johnson & Jonathan Rogers, 2023. "First You Get the Money, Then You Get the Power: The Effect of Cheating on Altruism," Games, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-21, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    dictator game; experiment; irrelevant information; context;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-12-00140. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.