IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/dicedp/251.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Experienced vs. inexperienced participants in the lab: Do they behave differently?

Author

Listed:
  • Benndorf, Volker
  • Moellers, Claudia
  • Normann, Hans-Theo

Abstract

We analyze whether subjects with extensive laboratory experience and first-time participants, who voluntarily registered for the experiment, differ in their behavior. Subjects play four one-shot, two-player games: a trust game, a beauty contest, an ultimatum game, a travelers' dilemma and, in addition, we conduct a singleplayer lying task and elicit risk preferences. We find few significant differences. In the trust game, experienced subjects are less trustworthy and they also trust less. Furthermore, experienced subjects submit fewer non-monotonic strategies in the risk elicitation task. We find no differences whatsoever in the other decisions. Nevertheless, the minor differences observed between experienced and inexperienced subjects may be relevant because we document a potential recruitment bias: the share of inexperienced subjects may be lower in the early recruitment waves.

Suggested Citation

  • Benndorf, Volker & Moellers, Claudia & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2017. "Experienced vs. inexperienced participants in the lab: Do they behave differently?," DICE Discussion Papers 251, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:dicedp:251
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/158027/1/888134010.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    2. Marco Casari & John C. Ham & John H. Kagel, 2007. "Selection Bias, Demographic Effects, and Ability Effects in Common Value Auction Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1278-1304, September.
    3. Blair Cleave & Nikos Nikiforakis & Robert Slonim, 2013. "Is there selection bias in laboratory experiments? The case of social and risk preferences," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(3), pages 372-382, September.
    4. Catherine C. Eckel & Philip J. Grossman, 2000. "Volunteers and Pseudo-Volunteers: The Effect of Recruitment Method in Dictator Experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(2), pages 107-120, October.
    5. 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.
    6. C. Monica Capra, 1999. "Anomalous Behavior in a Traveler's Dilemma?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 678-690, June.
    7. Armin Falk & Stephan Meier & Christian Zehnder, 2013. "Do Lab Experiments Misrepresent Social Preferences? The Case Of Self-Selected Student Samples," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 839-852, August.
    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. repec:hal:wpaper:hal-03974756 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Akdeniz, Aslıhan & van Veelen, Matthijs, 2023. "Evolution and the ultimatum game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 570-612.
    3. David Hugh-Jones, 2019. "True lies," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 5(2), pages 255-268, December.
    4. Ellen Garbarino & Robert Slonim & Marie Claire Villeval, 2018. "A method to estimate mean lying rates and their full distribution," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 4(2), pages 136-150, December.
    5. Arechar, Antonio A. & Rand, David G., 2022. "Learning to be selfish? A large-scale longitudinal analysis of Dictator games played on Amazon Mechanical Turk," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    6. Jonathan Schulz & Uwe Sunde & Petra Thiemann & Christian Thoeni, 2019. "Selection into Experiments: Evidence from a Population of Students," Discussion Papers 2019-09, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    7. Schmidt, Robert & Schwieren, Christiane & Sproten, Alec N., 2020. "Norms in the lab: Inexperienced versus experienced participants," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 239-255.
    8. Tiziana Medda & Vittorio Pelligra & Tommaso Reggiani, 2021. "Lab-Sophistication: Does Repeated Participation in Laboratory Experiments Affect Pro-Social Behaviour?," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-14, February.
    9. Thiemann, Petra & Schulz, Jonathan & Sunde, Uwe & Thöni, Christian, 2022. "Selection into experiments: New evidence on the role of preferences, cognition, and recruitment protocols," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    10. Shaun P. Hargreaves Heap & Eugenio Levi & Abhijit Ramalingam, 2021. "Group identification and giving: in-group love, out-group hate and their crowding out," MUNI ECON Working Papers 2021-07, Masaryk University, revised Feb 2023.
    11. Roggenkamp, Hauke C., 2024. "Revisiting ‘Growth and Inequality in Public Good Provision’—Reproducing and Generalizing Through Inconvenient Online Experimentation," OSF Preprints 6rn97, Center for Open Science.
    12. Chapkovski, Philipp, 2023. "Conducting interactive experiments on Toloka," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    13. Ellen Garbarino & Robert Slonim & Marie Claire Villeval, 2018. "A Method to Estimate Mean Lying Rates and Their Full Distribution," Post-Print halshs-01896598, HAL.
    14. Kleinlercher, Daniel & Stöckl, Thomas, 2021. "Thou shalt not trade—An analysis of the violations of no-trade predictions in experimental asset markets," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    15. Müller, Stephan & Rau, Holger A., 2020. "Motivational crowding out effects in charitable giving: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    16. Dengler-Roscher, Kathrin & Montinari, Natalia & Panganiban, Marian & Ploner, Matteo & Werner, Benedikt, 2018. "On the malleability of fairness ideals: Spillover effects in partial and impartial allocation tasks," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 60-74.
    17. Laurent Denant-Boemont & Matthieu Leprince & Matthieu Pourieux, 2019. "Distributive Preferences of Public Representatives: A Field-in-the-Lab Experiment," Economics Working Paper from Condorcet Center for political Economy at CREM-CNRS 2019-05-ccr, Condorcet Center for political Economy.
    18. Fortuna Casoria & Fabio Galeotti & Marie Claire Villeval, 2023. "Trust and social preferences in times of acute health crisis," Working Papers 2304, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    19. Chapkovski, Philipp, 2022. "Interactive Experiments in Toloka," EconStor Preprints 249771, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    20. Schmidt, Robert J. & Schwieren, Christiane & Sproten, Alec N., 2018. "Social Norm Perception in Economic Laboratory Experiments: Inexperienced versus Experienced Participants," Working Papers 0656, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    21. Palan, Stefan & Schitter, Christian, 2018. "Prolific.ac—A subject pool for online experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 22-27.
    22. Benndorf, Volker & Rau, Holger A. & Sölch, Christian, 2019. "Minimizing learning in repeated real-effort tasks," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 239-248.
    23. Aurélie Dariel & Nikos Nikiforakis & Jan Stoop, 2020. "Does selection bias cause us to overestimate gender differences in competitiveness?," Working Papers 20200046, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised May 2020.
    24. Chapkovski, Philipp, 2022. "Interactive experiments in Toloka," MPRA Paper 111980, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Volker Benndorf & Claudia Moellers & Hans-Theo Normann, 2017. "Experienced vs. inexperienced participants in the lab: do they behave differently?," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(1), pages 12-25, July.
    2. Schmidt, Robert & Schwieren, Christiane & Sproten, Alec N., 2020. "Norms in the lab: Inexperienced versus experienced participants," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 239-255.
    3. James Bland & Nikos Nikiforakis, 2013. "Tacit Coordination in Games with Third-Party Externalities," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2013_19, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    4. Johannes Abeler & Daniele Nosenzo, 2015. "Self-selection into laboratory experiments: pro-social motives versus monetary incentives," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(2), pages 195-214, June.
    5. Kamas, Linda & Preston, Anne, 2016. "Are we underestimating inequality aversion? Comparing recruited and classroom subjects," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 157-159.
    6. Walkowitz, Gari, 2017. "On the Validity of Cost-Saving Methods in Dictator-Game Experiments: A Systematic Test," MPRA Paper 83309, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Walkowitz, Gari, 2019. "On the Validity of Probabilistic (and Cost-Saving) Incentives in Dictator Games: A Systematic Test," MPRA Paper 91541, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Walkowitz, Gari, 2021. "Dictator game variants with probabilistic (and cost-saving) payoffs: A systematic test," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    9. Schmidt, Robert J. & Schwieren, Christiane & Sproten, Alec N., 2018. "Social Norm Perception in Economic Laboratory Experiments: Inexperienced versus Experienced Participants," Working Papers 0656, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    10. Ispano, Alessandro & Schwardmann, Peter, 2017. "Cooperating over losses and competing over gains: A social dilemma experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 329-348.
    11. Breitmoser, Yves, 2019. "Knowing me, imagining you: Projection and overbidding in auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 423-447.
    12. Astrid Matthey & Tobias Regner, 2013. "On the independence of history: experience spill-overs between experiments," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 75(3), pages 403-419, September.
    13. Andrea Essl & Frauke von Bieberstein & Michael Kosfeld & Markus Kröll, 2018. "Sales Performance and Social Preferences," CESifo Working Paper Series 7030, CESifo.
    14. Matteo M. Galizzi & Daniel Navarro-Martinez, 2019. "On the External Validity of Social Preference Games: A Systematic Lab-Field Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 976-1002, March.
    15. Marie Ferré & Stefanie Engel & Elisabeth Gsottbauer, 2023. "External validity of economic experiments on Agri‐environmental scheme design," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(3), pages 661-685, September.
    16. Thomas Epper & Julien Senn & Ernst Fehr, 2023. "The Missing Type: Where Are the Inequality Averse (Students)?," Working Papers 2023-iRisk-06, IESEG School of Management.
    17. Thomas Epper & Julien Senn & Ernst Fehr, 2023. "Social preferences across subject pools: students vs. general population," ECON - Working Papers 435, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Jan 2024.
    18. Loukas Balafoutas & Helena Fornwagner, 2017. "The limits of guilt," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(2), pages 137-148, December.
    19. Frigau, Luca & Medda, Tiziana & Pelligra, Vittorio, 2019. "From the field to the lab. An experiment on the representativeness of standard laboratory subjects," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 160-169.
    20. Ioannou, Christos A. & Qi, Shi & Rustichini, Aldo, 2013. "A test of stability in a linear altruism model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 85-89.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    dilemma; experienced subjects; laboratory methods; trust game;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:dicedp:251. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diduede.html .

    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.