IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v82y2019ics2214804319301247.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Identification of individuals and groups in a public goods experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Christens, Sven
  • Dannenberg, Astrid
  • Sachs, Florian

Abstract

Revealing the identities of contributors has been shown to increase cooperation in public goods games. In this paper we experimentally investigate whether this finding holds true when decisions are made by groups rather than individuals. We distinguish between groups in which members can discuss face-to-face to reach a decision and groups in which members communicate via computer chat. The results confirm the positive effect of identification on cooperation among individuals. For groups, however, we only find a small and temporary effect of identification, irrespective of the type of communication.

Suggested Citation

  • Christens, Sven & Dannenberg, Astrid & Sachs, Florian, 2019. "Identification of individuals and groups in a public goods experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:82:y:2019:i:c:s2214804319301247
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2019.06.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804319301247
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2019.06.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anya Savikhin Samek & Roman Sheremeta, 2014. "Recognizing contributors: an experiment on public goods," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(4), pages 673-690, December.
    2. Stephan Huber & Jochen Model & Silvio Städter, 2019. "Ostracism in alliances of teams and individuals: Voting, exclusion, contribution, and earnings," IAAEU Discussion Papers 201901, Institute of Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the European Union (IAAEU).
    3. Auerswald, Heike & Schmidt, Carsten & Thum, Marcel & Torsvik, Gaute, 2018. "Teams in a public goods experiment with punishment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 28-39.
    4. Wolfgang Luhan & Martin Kocher & Matthias Sutter, 2009. "Group polarization in the team dictator game reconsidered," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(1), pages 26-41, March.
    5. Alpizar, Francisco & Carlsson, Fredrik & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2008. "Anonymity, reciprocity, and conformity: Evidence from voluntary contributions to a national park in Costa Rica," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1047-1060, June.
    6. Kugler, Tamar & Bornstein, Gary & Kocher, Martin G. & Sutter, Matthias, 2007. "Trust between individuals and groups: Groups are less trusting than individuals but just as trustworthy," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 646-657, December.
    7. Andreoni, James & Rao, Justin M., 2011. "The power of asking: How communication affects selfishness, empathy, and altruism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 513-520.
    8. Andreoni, James & Petrie, Ragan, 2004. "Public goods experiments without confidentiality: a glimpse into fund-raising," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1605-1623, July.
    9. repec:wly:soecon:v:82:3:y:2016:p:801-808 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Small, Deborah A & Loewenstein, George, 2003. "Helping a Victim or Helping the Victim: Altruism and Identifiability," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 5-16, January.
    11. David Masclet & Charles Noussair & Steven Tucker & Marie-Claire Villeval, 2003. "Monetary and Nonmonetary Punishment in the Voluntary Contributions Mechanism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 366-380, March.
    12. 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.
    13. Soetevent, Adriaan R., 2005. "Anonymity in giving in a natural context--a field experiment in 30 churches," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(11-12), pages 2301-2323, December.
    14. Karen Evelyn Hauge & Ole Rogeberg, 2015. "Representing Others in a Public Good Game," Games, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-13, September.
    15. 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.
    16. Müller, Wieland & Tan, Fangfang, 2013. "Who acts more like a game theorist? Group and individual play in a sequential market game and the effect of the time horizon," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 658-674.
    17. Adriaan Soetevent, 2005. "Anonymity in giving in a natural context-a field experiment in thirty churches," Framed Field Experiments 00198, The Field Experiments Website.
    18. Ronald Peeters & Marc Vorsatz, 2013. "Immaterial Rewards And Sanctions In A Voluntary Contribution Experiment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(2), pages 1442-1456, April.
    19. Rockenbach, Bettina & Sadrieh, Abdolkarim & Mathauschek, Barbara, 2007. "Teams take the better risks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 412-422, July.
    20. Gary Charness & Matthias Sutter, 2012. "Groups Make Better Self-Interested Decisions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 157-176, Summer.
    21. López-Pérez, Raúl & Vorsatz, Marc, 2010. "On approval and disapproval: Theory and experiments," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 527-541, August.
    22. Jeannette Brosig & Joachim Weimann & Axel Ockenfels, 2003. "The Effect of Communication Media on Cooperation," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 4(2), pages 217-241, May.
    23. Tamar Kugler & Edgar E. Kausel & Martin G. Kocher, 2012. "Are Groups more Rational than Individuals? A Review of Interactive Decision Making in Groups," CESifo Working Paper Series 3701, CESifo.
    24. Kogut, Tehila & Ritov, Ilana, 2005. "The singularity effect of identified victims in separate and joint evaluations," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 106-116, July.
    25. Cason, Timothy N & Mui, Vai-Lam, 1997. "A Laboratory Study of Group Polarisation in the Team Dictator Game," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(444), pages 1465-1483, September.
    26. Patricia Funk, 2010. "Social Incentives and Voter Turnout: Evidence from the Swiss Mail Ballot System," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(5), pages 1077-1103, September.
    27. Gary Bornstein & Ilan Yaniv, 1998. "Individual and Group Behavior in the Ultimatum Game: Are Groups More “Rational” Players?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 101-108, June.
    28. Rege, Mari & Telle, Kjetil, 2004. "The impact of social approval and framing on cooperation in public good situations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1625-1644, July.
    29. Bock, Olaf & Baetge, Ingmar & Nicklisch, Andreas, 2014. "hroot: Hamburg Registration and Organization Online Tool," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 117-120.
    30. Gillet, Joris & Schram, Arthur & Sonnemans, Joep, 2009. "The tragedy of the commons revisited: The importance of group decision-making," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 785-797, June.
    31. Ahn, T K & Ostrom, Elinor & Shupp, Robert & Walker, James, 2001. "Cooperation in PD Games: Fear, Greed, and History of Play," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 106(1-2), pages 137-155, January.
    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. Kandul, Serhiy & Lanz, Bruno, 2021. "Public good provision, in-group cooperation and out-group descriptive norms: A lab experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    2. Turpie, Jane & Letley, Gwyneth, 2021. "Would community conservation initiatives benefit from external financial oversight? A framed field experiment in Namibia’s communal conservancies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    3. Dannenberg, Astrid & Weingärtner, Eva, 2023. "The effects of observability and an information nudge on food choice," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    4. Astrid Dannenberg & Elina Khachatryan, 2020. "A Comparison of Individual and Group Behavior in a Competition with Cheating Opportunities," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202003, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    5. Kiet T. Nguyen, 2020. "Formal versus Informal System to Mitigate Non‐point Source Pollution: An Experimental Investigation," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(3), pages 838-852, September.
    6. Dannenberg, Astrid & Klatt, Charlotte & Weingärtner, Eva, 2024. "The effects of social norms and observability on food choice," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    7. Astrid Dannenberg & Olof Johansson‐Stenman & Heike Wetzel, 2022. "Status for the good guys: An experiment on charitable giving," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(2), pages 721-740, April.
    8. Elisa Hofmann, 2020. "The power of close relationships and audiences: Interpersonal closeness and payment observability as determinants of voluntary payments," Jena Economics Research Papers 2020-016, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    9. Isaak, Andrew & Schwieren, Christiane & Iida, Yoshio, 2022. "Reaching agreement on contribution behavior in different cultures-a public goods game with representatives in Japan and Germany," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    10. Dannenberg, Astrid & Khachatryan, Elina, 2020. "A comparison of individual and group behavior in a competition with cheating opportunities," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 533-547.
    11. Dannenberg, Astrid & Martinsson, Peter, 2021. "Responsibility and prosocial behavior - Experimental evidence on charitable donations by individuals and group representatives," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    12. Ayala Arad & Kevin P. Grubiak & Stefan P. Penczynski, 2024. "Does communicating within a team influence individuals’ reasoning and decisions?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 27(1), pages 109-129, March.
    13. Xu, Chenyang & Qin, Botao & Rawlings, Devan, 2022. "Motivational crowding effects of monetary and nonmonetary incentives: Evidence from a common pool resources experiment in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 202(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. Sven Christens & Astrid Dannenberg & Florian Sachs, 2017. "Identification of individuals and groups in a public goods experiment," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201755, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    2. He, Haoran & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2017. "Are group members less inequality averse than individual decision makers?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 111-124.
    3. Faralla, Valeria & Borà, Guido & Innocenti, Alessandro & Novarese, Marco, 2020. "Promises in group decision making," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 1-11.
    4. Auerswald, Heike & Schmidt, Carsten & Thum, Marcel & Torsvik, Gaute, 2018. "Teams in a public goods experiment with punishment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 28-39.
    5. Haoran He & Marie Claire Villeval, 2014. "Are teams less inequality averse than individuals?," Post-Print halshs-01077253, HAL.
    6. Thum, Marcel & Auerswald, Heike & Schmidt, Carsten & Torsvik, Gaute, 2014. "Teams Contribute More and Punish Less," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100537, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Haoran He & Marie Claire Villeval, 2014. "Are team members less inequality averse than individual decision makers?," Working Papers halshs-00996545, HAL.
    8. Kamei, Kenju & Tabero, Katy, 2021. "The Individual-Team Discontinuity Effect on Institutional Choices: Experimental Evidence in Voluntary Public Goods Provision," MPRA Paper 112106, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Müller, Wieland & Tan, Fangfang, 2013. "Who acts more like a game theorist? Group and individual play in a sequential market game and the effect of the time horizon," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 658-674.
    10. Heike Auerswald & Carsten Schmidt & Marcel Thum & Gaute Torsvik, 2013. "Teams Punish Less," CESifo Working Paper Series 4406, CESifo.
    11. Balafoutas, Loukas & Kerschbamer, Rudolf & Kocher, Martin & Sutter, Matthias, 2014. "Revealed distributional preferences: Individuals vs. teams," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 319-330.
    12. Baethge, Caroline, 2016. "Performance in the beauty contest: How strategic discussion enhances team reasoning," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Betriebswirtschaftliche Reihe B-17-16, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    13. Cox, Caleb A. & Stoddard, Brock, 2018. "Strategic thinking in public goods games with teams," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 31-43.
    14. Kamei, Kenju, 2017. "Altruistic Norm Enforcement and Decision-Making Format in a Dilemma: Experimental Evidence," MPRA Paper 76641, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Tibor Besedeš & Cary Deck & Sarah Quintanar & Sudipta Sarangi & Mikhail Shor, 2014. "Effort and Performance: What Distinguishes Interacting and Noninteracting Groups from Individuals?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(2), pages 294-322, October.
    16. Waichman, Israel & Blanckenburg, Korbinian von, 2020. "Is there no “I” in “Team”? Interindividual-intergroup discontinuity effect in a Cournot competition experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    17. Kirchkamp, Oliver & Strobel, Christina, 2019. "Sharing responsibility with a machine," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 25-33.
    18. Anya Savikhin Samek & Roman Sheremeta, 2014. "Recognizing contributors: an experiment on public goods," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(4), pages 673-690, December.
    19. Drouvelis, Michalis & Marx, Benjamin M., 2018. "Prosociality spillovers of working with others," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 205-216.
    20. Philipp Dörrenberg & Christoph Feldhaus, 2022. "How Does Group-Decision Making Affect Subsequent Individual Behavior?," CESifo Working Paper Series 9513, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public goods experiment; Cooperation; Group decisions; Face-to-face communication; Computer chat communication; Identification;
    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
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

    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:eee:soceco:v:82:y:2019:i:c:s2214804319301247. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    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.