Decisions under risk in a social and individual context: The limits of social preferences?

Social preference models were originally constructed to explain why people spend money to affect the earnings of others. These social preference theories are now widely used to model situations where decision makers do not influence the earnings of others, for example the labor market. Outcome-based social preference models make predictions in these settings as well. We therefore test these models in a novel experimental situation where participants face risky decisions that affect only their own earnings. In the social (individual) treatment participants do (not) observe the earnings of others. In the social treatment gambles therefore not only affect absolute but also relative earnings. All outcome-based social preference models predict a treatment difference. We find that decisions are generally the same in both treatments, which suggests these models are less general applicable than their formulation suggests.