This project was conducted while Ernesto Mesa-Vázquez was
visiting Universidad Loyola Andalucia. He wants to particularly
thank Pablo Brañas-Garza and Diego Jorrat for continued
guidance and assessment with the experimental design.
Álvaro Núñez-Bermúdez and the faculty members of the Economics
and Business Sciences department at the University of
Seville were very helpful in providing assistance for running
the experiment. The paper has benefited from comments and
suggestions provided by Maria Paz Espinosa, Giuseppe Attanassi,
José Enrique Vila, Iván Arribas, Marco Faillo, Cristina Borra and
participants at the Loyola Behavioral Lab and the Early Career Researchers
in Experimental Economics Workshop (ECREEW) organized
by the Red Española de Economía Experimental y del Comportamiento.
Members of the ESA community were very helpful
pointing out to relevant papers to our research. Special thanks to
Daniel Müller, Michael Kurschilgen, Sabine Erika Kröger, Daniel
Zizzo, Praveen Kujal, Paul J. Halevy, Michal Krawczyk and
Matthias Greiff for their references and stimulating discussion.
Finally, we acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry
of Economics and Competition under the project ECO2016-
75575-R (A. Urbano) and the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation
and Universities under projects PID2019-110790RB-I00
(A. Urbano) and PGC2018-097875-A-I00 (Ismael Rodriguez-Lara);
and the Generalitat Valenciana, Spain under the Excellence Program
Prometeo 2019/095 (A. Urbano). Funding for open access
charge: Universidad de Granada/CBUA. The usual disclaimers
apply.We show that generosity is affected when we vary the level of role uncertainty, i.e., the probability
that the dictator’s decision will be implemented. We also show that framing matters for generosity
in that subjects are less generous when they are told that their choices will be implemented with
a certain probability, compared with a setting in which they are told that their choices will not be
implemented with certain probabilitySpanish Government
	ECO2016-75575-RSpanish Ministry of Economics and Competition
	PID2019-110790RB-I00	
	PGC2018-097875-A-I00Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and UniversitiesGeneralitat Valenciana
	2019/095Universidad de Granada/CBU

Mesa-Vázquez, Ernesto

Rodriguez-Lara, Ismael

Urbano, Amparo

English

Repositorio Institucional Universidad de Granada

Economics Letters 206 (2021) 109981abcbbmloafaoerlrw(dTGh0nContents lists available at ScienceDirectEconomics Lettersjournal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoletStandard vs randomdictator games: On the effects of role uncertaintyand framing on generosityErnesto Mesa-Vázquez a, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara b,c,∗, Amparo Urbano aUniversidad de Valencia, ERICES, SpainDepartment of Economics, Universidad de Granada, SpainEconomic Science Institute (ESI), Chapman University, United States of Americaa r t i c l e i n f oArticle history:Received 3 May 2021Received in revised form 30 June 2021Accepted 2 July 2021Available online 7 July 2021JEL classification:C91D3D6D81Keywords:Dictator gamesGenerosityRole uncertaintyFraming effectsa b s t r a c tWe show that generosity is affected when we vary the level of role uncertainty, i.e., the probabilitythat the dictator’s decision will be implemented. We also show that framing matters for generosityin that subjects are less generous when they are told that their choices will be implemented witha certain probability, compared with a setting in which they are told that their choices will not beimplemented with certain probability.© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-NDlicense (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).t1mir1. IntroductionPeople may be more likely to exhibit pro-social or generousehavior when they perceive it is unlikely that their choices wille implemented, while more selfish or self-interested behavioray be observed when people perceive that their actions areikely to have economic consequences for others. This can bebserved when people face uncertain commitments; e.g., helpingrelative who is sick or a friend who need to move, etc. Inact, there is ample evidence that people may want to appears fair to feel better themselves or to receive recognition fromthers (Andreoni, 1990; Andreoni and Bernheim, 2009; Danat al., 2007; Ottoni-Wilhelm et al., 2017).Our results suggest that both the framing and the level ofole uncertainty affect generosity. These findings add the currentiterature on various fronts. When eliciting generous behavior,esearchers have either employed the standard dictator game (inhich there is no role uncertainty) or random dictator gamesin which all participants make their choices as if they wereictators and then only half of the choices are implemented).here is also a bunch of papers that examine generosity in risky∗ Corresponding author at: Department of Economics, Universidad deranada, Spain.E-mail address: ismaelrl@ugr.es (I. Rodriguez-Lara). Pttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2021.109981165-1765/© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access ac-nd/4.0/).dictator games in which dictators choose between a ‘‘safe option’’and a ‘‘risky option’’ or probabilistic dictator games in which dic-tators redistribute probabilities of winning a prize (Dana et al.,2007; Cettolin et al., 2017; Krawczyk and Le Lec, 2010; Karniet al., 2008; Brock et al., 2013; Saito, 2013; Exley, 2016). Yetthe experimental evidence that examines how role uncertaintyinfluences generous behavior is very limited. In fact, the onlyexception we know is (Iriberri and Rey-Biel, 2011) who find ina repeated game that selfish choices are more frequent whenthere is no role uncertainty (i.e., when participants know whowill be the dictator), while altruistic choices are more frequentwhen there is role uncertainty (i.e., when participants do notknow who will be the dictator).1 We build on their work to showthat the probability of the choice being implemented and theframing of the decision are key to explain generosity in a one-shotdictator game. Our results also contribute to the experimentalevidence that shows that framing affects generosity (Capraro and1 As already noted in Iriberri and Rey-Biel (2011) choices under role uncer-ainty differ from choices under the veil of ignorance (Rawls, 1971; Harsanyi,977) as the latter implies that the decision-makers’ choices will be imple-ented but they do not know what their final role in the game would be;.e., decision-makers under the veil of ignorance do not know whether they willeceive the payoff associated to the dictator or the recipient. See Frignani andonti (2012) for decisions under the veil of ignorance in the dictator game.rticle under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-E. Mesa-Vázquez, I. Rodriguez-Lara and A. Urbano Economics Letters 206 (2021) 109981Vfo22ajs1tbsI{aifdgt22ir4rf‘tP2aobOpiwboattdpft(woR0ifgdtTm4keceehdswoaqanzo, 2019; Brañas-Garza, 2007). In particular, we argue thatraming choices as dictators or recipients may affect the feelingsf ownership and this may have consequences for giving.. Experimental design and hypotheses.1. Experimental designWe rely on the strategy method and present subjects withmultiple probability list (MPL) dictator game in which sub-ects are asked to split an endowment of 10ebetween them-elves and another participant. Each subject makes a total of1 choices. In the Dictator-Frame, subjects are confronted withhe probability p ∈ {1, 0.9, . . . , 0.1, 0} that their choices wille implemented (with the remaining probability they will beelected as recipients, thus their choice will not be implemented).n the Recipient-Frame, choices vary with the probability q ∈1, 0.9, . . . , 0.1, 0} of being selected as recipients; i.e., subjectsre presented with the probability that their choices will not bemplemented. Fig. 1 presents the decision table of subjects in eachrame.2 The instructions are presented in Appendix A.At the end of the experiment, we collected a number of in-ividual variables regarding basic demographics (i.e., age andender), risk preferences, cognitive reflection and taste for advan-ageous and disadvantageous taste for inequality..2. ProceduresThe experiment was held at the Universidad de Sevilla in April019. A total of 88 students with no previous experience partic-pated in our experiment. Students were placed in two differentooms and received the instructions for the Dictator-Frame (N =4) or the Recipient-Frame (N = 44). To pay participants, weandomly matched them in pairs and selected one of the rowsor payment. We then implemented either the ‘‘dictator’’ or the‘recipient’’ choice depending on the probabilities associated tohe selected row by extracting a second ball from a different urn.3articipants received 5 Euros as show-up payment..3. HypothesesThe theoretical prediction under the assumption that subjectsre purely selfish is that they will give nothing away, regardlessf their role in the game or the probability that their choices wille implemented; thus all choices should be the same in the MPLs.ur main hypothesis, however, is that giving decreases with therobability that the decision will be implemented, thus subjectsn the role of dictators or recipients are expected to give morehen it is unlikely that their choices will be implemented.H1. Giving decreases with the probability that the decision wille implemented.The recent article by Korenok et al. (2017) suggest that feelingsf ownership can affect generosity. The feelings of ownership areffected in their setting when dictators earn the endowment orheir decision is framed as giving to the recipient or taking fromhe recipient. In our experiment, we attempt to affect the feelings2 Our study included two other conditions in which the probabilities of beingictator or recipient ranged from 0.9 to 0.1. Our findings are robust to theserobabilities, but the interested reader can consult (Mesa-Vázquez et al., 2019)or further details.3 Imagine that row 5 was selected for payment. This implies that the choice ofhe Dictator-Frame (Recipient-Frame) was implemented with a probability of 0.60.4), respectively. We then extracted a ball from a different urn: if the numberas 1-6 then we implemented the decision of participant in the Dictator-Frame;therwise, the choice we implemented was the one of the participant in theecipient-Frame.2of ownership by changing the framing of the decision. We arguethat subjects will have a have stronger feelings of ownership inthe Dictator-Frame than in the Recipient-Frame, thus subjectswill give less in the role of dictators compared with giving in therole of recipients.H2a. Giving in the Recipient-Frame is higher than giving inthe Dictator-Frame because the frame will affect the feelings ofownership.A second feature that can affect giving in each frame refersto the cognitive load associated to giving. When subjects are inthe Recipient-Frame, they are confronted with the probabilitiesthat their choices will not be implemented (i.e., they have tothink that choices will be implemented with the complementaryprobability). This can increase their cognitive effort and mayreduce giving, as suggested in Schulz et al. (2014).4H2b. Giving in the Recipient-Frame is lower than giving in theDictator-Frame because of the cognitive load associated to giving.3. ResultsFig. 2 shows the average giving in each frame, dependingon the level of role uncertainty; i.e., the horizontal axis showsthe probabilities that the decision will be implemented. In theDictator-Frame, this corresponds to the value of p that was pre-sented to subjects in the MPL, while the values for the Recipient-Frame has been transformed to indicate the probability that thechoice will be implemented; therefore the probabilities corre-spond to (1 − q) in the MPL.5 We include in each panel theaverage giving and the standard deviation, using each subjectas an independent observation. We also present the fraction ofselfish allocations (i.e., giving nothing) and egalitarian allocations(i.e., giving half).6First, we find support for H1 that giving decreases with theprobability of the choice being implemented; i.e., the Jonckheere–Terpstra test suggests a negative trend in both frames (p <.001).Result 1. Subjects give less (i.e., they are more selfish) when theres a high probability that their choice will be implemented.Second, when we compare the level of generosity acrossrames we find that subjects in the Dictator-Frame are moreenerous than subjects in the Recipient-Frame (3.69 vs 4.89). Theifference is statistically significant using a Wilcoxon rank-sumest (p < 0.001) or the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test (p < 0.001).his, in turn, provides evidence in favor of H2a.7Result 2. Subjects in the Dictator-Frame give less (i.e., they areore selfish) than subjects in the Recipient-Frame.. ConclusionPrevious research has used dictator games in which subjectsnow their role in the game (standard dictator games) or they4 For evidence that the cognitive load does not affect generosity see Benjamint al. (2013) or Hauge et al. (2016). According to Schulz et al. (2014) the resultsan be explained by differences in the cognitive load; e.g., subjects in Hauget al. (2016) are asked to recall a seven-digit number, while subjects in Schulzt al. (2014) hear a series of letters and have to press a button whenever theyear a character that resounded two letters before, thus the latter task is moreemanding in terms of cognitive effort.5 The choice when the probability is 0 corresponds to an hypotheticalcenario in which subjects give under role certainty knowing that their choiceill not be selected for sure.6 The data underlying the study is accessible at https://x-econ.org repositoryf Experimental Economics (DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23663/x2654).7 In Mesa-Vázquez et al. (2019) we show that these results are robust ton econometric analysis, where we control for the information collected in ouruestionnaire.E. Mesa-Vázquez, I. Rodriguez-Lara and A. Urbano Economics Letters 206 (2021) 109981cmdfpaiswaifditgatrAvFig. 1. Decision table (MPL) in the Dictator-Frame (left-hand side) and the Recipient-Frame (right-hand side).Fig. 2. Giving in the Dictator-Frame (left-panel) and the Recipient-Frame (right-panel).hoose in the role of dictators and then a random draw deter-ines whether or not their choices are implemented (randomictator games in which there is role uncertainty). While theundamental assumption is that generous behavior will be inde-endent of the level of role uncertainty, we find that participantsre more generous when it is unlikely that their choices will bemplemented. We also find that framing affects generosity in thatubjects are less generous when they are told that their choicesill be implemented with a certain probability, compared withsetting in which they are told that their choices will not bemplemented with certain probability.We believe that these results advance our knowledge on theactors that influence generosity. Empirically, we provide evi-ence in favor of our hypotheses that role uncertainty and fram-ng affect generosity. As a methodological implication, we sharehe view in Iriberri and Rey-Biel (2011) that random dictatorames in which there is role or strategic uncertainty should bevoided to elicit generosity. In fact, we believe that introducinghis role uncertainty can be used as an excuse not to donate inisky environments (Exley, 2016).cknowledgmentsThis project was conducted while Ernesto Mesa-Vázquez wasisiting Universidad Loyola Andalucia. He wants to particularly3thank Pablo Brañas-Garza and Diego Jorrat for continuedguidance and assessment with the experimental design.Álvaro Núñez-Bermúdez and the faculty members of the Eco-nomics and Business Sciences department at the University ofSeville were very helpful in providing assistance for runningthe experiment. The paper has benefited from comments andsuggestions provided by Maria Paz Espinosa, Giuseppe Attanassi,José Enrique Vila, Iván Arribas, Marco Faillo, Cristina Borra andparticipants at the Loyola Behavioral Lab and the Early Career Re-searchers in Experimental Economics Workshop (ECREEW) orga-nized by the Red Española de Economía Experimental y del Com-portamiento. Members of the ESA community were very helpfulpointing out to relevant papers to our research. Special thanks toDaniel Müller, Michael Kurschilgen, Sabine Erika Kröger, DanielZizzo, Praveen Kujal, Paul J. Halevy, Michal Krawczyk andMatthias Greiff for their references and stimulating discussion.Finally, we acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Min-istry of Economics and Competition under the project ECO2016-75575-R (A. Urbano) and the Spanish Ministry of Science, In-novation and Universities under projects PID2019-110790RB-I00(A. Urbano) and PGC2018-097875-A-I00 (Ismael Rodriguez-Lara);and the Generalitat Valenciana, Spain under the Excellence Pro-gram Prometeo 2019/095 (A. Urbano). Funding for open accesscharge: Universidad de Granada/CBUA. The usual disclaimersapply.E. Mesa-Vázquez, I. Rodriguez-Lara and A. Urbano Economics Letters 206 (2021) 109981RAABBBCCDEFeferencesndreoni, J., 1990. Impure altruism and donations to public goods: A theory ofwarm-glow giving. Econ. J. 100 (401), 464–477.ndreoni, J., Bernheim, B.D., 2009. Social image and the 50–50 norm: Atheoretical and experimental analysis of audience effects. Econometrica 77(5), 1607–1636.enjamin, D.J., Brown, S.A., Shapiro, J.M., 2013. Who is ‘behavioral’? Cognitiveability and anomalous preferences. J. Eur. Econom. Assoc. 11 (6), 1231–1255.rañas-Garza, P., 2007. Promoting helping behavior with framing in dictatorgames. J. Econ. Psychol. 28 (4), 477–486.rock, J.M., Lange, A., Ozbay, E.Y., 2013. Dictating the risk: Experimental evidenceon giving in risky environments. Amer. Econ. Rev. 103 (1), 415–437.apraro, V., Vanzo, A., 2019. The power of moral words: Loaded languagegenerates framing effects in the extreme dictator game. arXiv preprintarXiv:1901.02314.ettolin, E., Riedl, A., Tran, G., 2017. Giving in the face of risk. J. Risk Uncertain.55 (2), 95–118.ana, J., Weber, R.A., Kuang, J.X., 2007. Exploiting moral wiggle room: experi-ments demonstrating an illusory preference for fairness. Econom. Theory 33(1), 67–80.xley, C.L., 2016. Excusing selfishness in charitable giving: The role of risk. Rev.Econom. Stud. 83 (2), 587–628.rignani, N., Ponti, G., 2012. Risk versus social preferences under the veil ofignorance. Econom. Lett. 116 (2), 143–146.4Harsanyi, J.C., 1977. Morality and the theory of rational behavior. Soc. Res.623–656.Hauge, K.E., Brekke, K.A., Johansson, L.-O., Johansson-Stenman, O., Svedsäter, H.,2016. Keeping others in our mind or in our heart? Distribution games undercognitive load. Exp. Econ. 19 (3), 562–576.Iriberri, N., Rey-Biel, P., 2011. The role of role uncertainty in modified dictatorgames. Exp. Econ. 14 (2), 160–180.Karni, E., Salmon, T., Sopher, B., 2008. Individual sense of fairness: anexperimental study. Exp. Econ. 11 (2), 174–189.Korenok, O., Millner, E., Razzolini, L., et al., 2017. Feelings of ownership indictator games. J. Econ. Psychol. 61, 145–151.Krawczyk, M., Le Lec, F., 2010. Give me a chance! an experiment in socialdecision under risk. Exp. Econ. 13 (4), 500–511.Mesa-Vázquez, E., Rodriguez-Lara, I., Urbano, A., et al., 2019. Standard vs RandomDictator Games. The Effect of Role Uncertainty on Generosity. TechnicalReport, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of theUniversity of Granada.Ottoni-Wilhelm, M., Vesterlund, L., Xie, H., 2017. Why do people give? Testingpure and impure altruism. Amer. Econ. Rev. 107 (11), 3617–3633.Rawls, J., 1971. A Theory of Justice. Harvard, Harvard University Press.Saito, K., 2013. Social preferences under risk: Equality of opportunity versusequality of outcome. Amer. Econ. Rev. 103 (7), 3084–3101.Schulz, J.F., Fischbacher, U., Thöni, C., Utikal, V., 2014. Affect and fairness:Dictator games under cognitive load. J. Econ. Psychol. 41, 77–87.

Standard vs random dictator games: On the effects of role uncertainty and framing on generosity

We show that generosity is affected when we vary the level of role uncertainty, i.e., the probability that the dictator’s decision will be implemented. We also show that framing matters for generosity in that subjects are less generous when they are told that their choices will be implemented with a certain probability, compared with a setting in which they are told that their choices will not be implemented with certain probability

Chapman University Digital Commons

Chapman University Chapman University Digital Commons ESI Working Papers Economic Science Institute 5-2021 Standard vs Random Dictator Games: On the Effects of Role Uncertainty and Framing on Generosity Ernesto Mesa-Vázquez Universidad de Valencia Ismael Rodriguez-Lara Chapman University, ismaelrl@ugr.es Amparo Urbano Universidad de Valencia Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/esi_working_papers  Part of the Econometrics Commons, Economic Theory Commons, and the Other Economics Commons Recommended Citation Mesa-Vázquez, E., Rodriguez-Lara, I., & Urbano, A. (2021). Standard vs random dictator games: On the effects of role uncertainty and framing on generosity. ESI Working Paper 21-17. https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/esi_working_papers/354/ This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Economic Science Institute at Chapman University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in ESI Working Papers by an authorized administrator of Chapman University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact laughtin@chapman.edu. Standard vs Random Dictator Games: On the Effects of Role Uncertainty and Framing on Generosity Comments ESI Working Paper 21-17 This paper later underwent peer-review and was published under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license as: Mesa-Vázquez, E., Rodriguez-Lara, I., & Urbano, A. (2021). Standard vs random dictator games: On the effects of role uncertainty and framing on generosity. Economics Letters, 206, 109981. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2021.109981 This article is available at Chapman University Digital Commons: https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/esi_working_papers/354 Standard vs random dictator games:On the effects of role uncertainty and framing on generosityErnesto Mesa-Vázquez1 Ismael Rodriguez-Lara2,3 Amparo Urbano11Universidad de Valencia, ERICES2Department of Economics, Universidad de Granada3Economic Science Institute (ESI), Chapman University.May 2021AbstractWe show that generosity is affected when we vary the level of role uncertainty, i.e., theprobability that the dictator’s decision will be implemented. We also show that framing mattersfor generosity in that subjects are less generous when they are told that their choices will beimplemented with a certain probability, compared with a setting in which they are told thattheir choices will not be implemented with certain probability.Keywords: dictator games, generosity, role uncertainty, framing effects.JEL Class.: C91, D3, D6, D8111 IntroductionPeople may be more likely to exhibit pro-social or generous behavior when they perceive it isunlikely that their choices will be implemented, while more selfish or self-interested behavior maybe observed when people perceive that their actions are likely to have economic consequences forothers. This can be observed when people face uncertain commitments; e.g., helping a relative whois sick or a friend who need to move, etc. In fact, there is ample evidence that people may wantto appear as fair to feel better themselves or to receive recognition from others (Andreoni, 1990;Andreoni and Bernheim, 2009; Dana et al., 2007; Ottoni-Wilhelm et al., 2017).Our results suggest that both the framing and the level of role uncertainty affect generosity.These findings add the current literature on various fronts. When eliciting generous behavior,researchers have either employed the standard dictator game (in which there is no role uncertainty)or random dictator games (in which all participants make their choices as if they were dictatorsand then only half of the choices are implemented). There is also a bunch of papers that examinegenerosity in risky dictator games in which dictators choose between a “safe option” and a “riskyoption” or probabilistic dictator games in which dictators redistribute probabilities of winning aprize (Dana et al., 2007; Cettolin et al., 2017; Krawczyk and Le Lec, 2010; Karni et al., 2008;Brock et al., 2013; Saito, 2013; Exley, 2016). Yet the experimental evidence that examines howrole uncertainty influences generous behavior is very limited. In fact, the only exception we knowis Iriberri and Rey-Biel (2011) who find in a repeated game that selfish choices are more frequentwhen there is no role uncertainty (i.e., when participants know who will be the dictator), whilealtruistic choices are more frequent when there is role uncertainty (i.e., when participants do notknow who will be the dictator).1 We build on their work to show that the probability of beingthe choice being implemented and the framing of the decision are key to explain generosity in aone-shot dictator game. Our results also contribute to the experimental evidence that shows thatframing affects generosity (Capraro and Vanzo, 2019; Brañas-Garza, 2007). In particular, we arguethat framing choices as dictators or recipients may affect the feelings of ownership and this mayhave consequences for giving.1As already noted in Iriberri and Rey-Biel (2011) choices under role uncertainty differ from choices under the veilof ignorance (Rawls, 1971; Harsanyi, 1977) as the latter implies that the decision-makers’ choices will be implementedbut they do not know what their final role in the game would be; i.e., decision-makers under the veil of ignorancedo not know whether they will receive the payoff associated to the dictator or the recipient. See Frignani and Ponti(2012) for decisions under the veil of ignorance in the dictator game.22 Experimental Design and Hypotheses2.1 Experimental designWe rely on the strategy method and present subjects with a multiple probability list (MPL) dic-tator game in which subjects are asked to split an endowment of 10€ between themselves andanother participant. Each subjects make a total of 11 choices. In the Dictator-Frame, subjects areconfronted with the probability p ∈ {1, 0.9, ..., 0.1, 0} that their choices will be implemented (withthe remaining probability they will be selected as recipients, thus their choice will not be imple-mented). In the Recipient-Frame, choices vary with the probability q ∈ {1, 0.9, ..., 0.1, 0} of beingselected as recipients; i.e., subjects are presented with the probability that their choices will not beimplemented. Figure 1 presents the decision table of subjects in each frame.2 The instructions arepresented in Appendix A.Figure 1: Decision table (MPL) in the Dictator-Frame (left-hand side) and the Recipient-Frame(right-hand side).At the end of the experiment, we collected a number of individual variables regarding basicdemographics (i.e., age and gender), risk preferences, cognitive reflection and taste for advantageousand disadvantageous taste for inequality.2Our study included two other conditions in which the probabilities of being dictator or recipient ranged from0.9 to 0.1. Our findings are robust to these probabilities, but the interested reader can consult Mesa-Vázquez et al.(2019) for further details.32.2 ProceduresThe experiment was held at the Universidad de Sevilla in April 2019. A total of 88 studentswith no previous experience participated in our experiment. Students were placed in two differentrooms and received the instructions for the Dictator-Frame (N = 44) or the Recipient-Frame (N= 44). To pay participants, we randomly matched them in pairs and selected one of the rowsfor payment. We then implemented either the “dictator” or the “recipient” choice depending onthe probabilities associated to the selected row by extracting a second ball from a different urn.3Participants received 5 Euros as show-up payment.2.3 HypothesesThe theoretical prediction under the assumption that subjects are purely selfish is that they willgive nothing away, regardless of their role in the game or the probability that their choices will beimplemented; thus all choices should be the same in the MPLs. Our main hypothesis, however, isthat giving decreases with the probability that the decision will be implemented, thus subjects inthe role of dictators or recipients are expected to give more when it is unlikely that their choiceswill be implemented.H1. Giving decreases with the probability that the decision will be implemented.The recent article by Korenok et al. (2017) suggest that feelings of ownership can affect generos-ity. The feelings of ownership are affected in their setting when dictators earn the endowment ortheir decision is framed as giving to the recipient or taking from the recipient. In our experiment,we attempt to affect the feelings of ownership by changing the framing of the decision. We arguethat subjects will have a have stronger feelings of ownership in the Dictator-Frame than in theRecipient-Frame, thus subjects will give less in the role of dictators compared with giving in therole of recipients.H2a. Giving in the Recipient-Frame is higher than giving in the Dictator-Frame because theframe will affect the feelings of ownership.A second feature that can affect giving in each frame refers to the cognitive load associated togiving. When subjects are in the Recipient-Frame, they are confronted with the probabilities that3Imagine that row 5 was selected for payment. This implies that the choice of the Dictator-Frame (Recipient-Frame) was implemented with a probability of 0.6 (0.4), respectively. We then extracted a ball from a different urn:if the number was 1-6 then we implemented the decision of participant in the Dictator-Frame; otherwise, the choicewe implemented was the one of the participant in the Recipient-Frame.4their choices will not be implemented (i.e., they have to think that choices will be implemented withthe complementary probability). This can increase their cognitive effort and may reduce giving, assuggested in Schulz et al. (2014).4H2b. Giving in the Recipient-Frame is lower than giving in the Dictator-Frame because of thecognitive load associated to giving.3 ResultsFigure 2 shows the average giving in each frame, depending on the level of role uncertainty; i.e.,the horizontal axis shows the probabilities that the decision will be implemented. In the Dictator-Frame, this corresponds to the value of p that was presented to subjects in the MPL, while thevalues for the Recipient-Frame has been transformed to indicate the probability that the choicewill be implemented; therefore the probabilities correspond to (1− q) in the MPL.5 We include ineach panel the average giving and the standard deviation, using each subject as an independentobservation. We also present the fraction of selfish allocations (i.e., giving nothing) and egalitarianallocations (i.e., giving half).6First, we find support for H1 that giving decreases with the probability of the choice beingimplemented; i.e., the Jonckheere-Terpstra test suggests a negative trend in both frames (p <0.001).Result 1. Subjects give less (i.e., they are more selfish) when there is a high probability thattheir choice will be implemented.Second, when we compare the level of generosity across frames we find that subjects in theDictator-Frame are more generous than subjects in the Recipient-Frame (3.69 vs 4.89). The dif-ference is statistically significant using a Wilcoxon rank-sum test (p < 0.001) or the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (p < 0.001). This, in turn, provides evidence in favor of H2a.74For evidence that the cognitive load does not affect generosity see Benjamin et al. (2013) or Hauge et al. (2016).According to Schulz et al. (2014) the results can be explained by differences in the cognitive load; e.g., subjects inHauge et al. (2016) are asked to recall a seven-digit number, while subjects in Schulz et al. (2014) hear a series ofletters and have to press a button whenever they hear a character that resounded two letters before, thus the lattertask is more demanding in terms of cognitive effort.5The choice when the probability is 0 corresponds to an hypothetical scenario in which subjects give under rolecertainty knowing that their choice will not be selected for sure.6The data underlying the study is accessible at https://x-econ.org repository of Experimental Economics (DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.23663/x2654).7In Mesa-Vázquez et al. (2019) we show that these results are robust to an econometric analysis, where we control5Figure 2: Giving in the Dictator-Frame (left-panel) and the Recipient-Frame (right-panel)Result 2. Subjects in the Dictator-Frame give less (i.e., they are more selfish) than subjects inthe Recipient-Frame.4 ConclusionPrevious research has used dictator games in which subjects know their role in the game (standarddictator games) or they choose in the role of dictators and then a random draw determines whetheror not their choices are implemented (random dictator games in which there is role uncertainty).While the fundamental assumption is that generous behavior will be independent of the level ofrole uncertainty, we find that participants are more generous when it is unlikely that their choiceswill be implemented. We also find that framing affects generosity in that subjects are less generouswhen they are told that their choices will be implemented with a certain probability, compared witha setting in which they are told that their choices will not be implemented with certain probability.We believe that these results advance our knowledge on the factors that influence generosity.Empirically, we provide evidence in favor of our hypotheses that role uncertainty and framing affectgenerosity. As a methodological implication, we share the view in Iriberri and Rey-Biel (2011) thatrandom dictator games in which there is role or strategic uncertainty should be avoided to elicitfor the information collected in our questionnaire.6generosity. In fact, we believe that introducing this role uncertainty can be used as an excuse notto donate in risky environments (Exley, 2016).AcknowledgementsThis project was conducted while Ernesto Mesa-Vázquez was visiting Universidad Loyola Andalucia. Hewants to particularly thank Pablo Brañas-Garza and Diego Jorrat for continued guidance and assessmentwith the experimental design. Álvaro Núñez-Bermúdez and the faculty members of the Economics andBusiness Sciences department at the University of Seville were very helpful in providing assistance for runningthe experiment. The paper has benefited from comments and suggestions provided by Maria Paz Espinosa,Giuseppe Attanassi, José Enrique Vila, Iván Arribas, Marco Faillo, Cristina Borra and participants at the theLoyola Behavioral Lab and the Early Career Researchers in Experimental Economics Workshop (ECREEW)organized by the Red Española de Economı́a Experimental y del Comportamiento. Members of the ESAcommunity were very helpful pointing out to relevant papers to our research. Special thanks to Daniel Müller,Michael Kurschilgen, Sabine Erika Kröger, Daniel Zizzo, Praveen Kujal, Paul J. Halevy, Michal Krawczykand Matthias Greiff for their references and stimulating discussion. Finally, we acknowledge financial supportfrom the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competition under the project ECO2016-75575-R (A. Urbano)and the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities under projects PID2019-110790RB-I00 (A.Urbano) and PGC2018-097875-A-I00 (Ismael Rodriguez-Lara); and the Generalitat Valenciana under theExcellence Program Prometeo 2019/095 (A. Urbano). The usual disclaimers apply.7ReferencesAndreoni, J., 1990. Impure altruism and donations to public goods: A theory of warm-glow giving.The Economic Journal 100, 464–477.Andreoni, J., Bernheim, B.D., 2009. Social image and the 50–50 norm: A theoretical and experi-mental analysis of audience effects. Econometrica 77, 1607–1636.Benjamin, D.J., Brown, S.A., Shapiro, J.M., 2013. Who is ‘behavioral’? cognitive ability andanomalous preferences. Journal of the European Economic Association 11, 1231–1255.Brañas-Garza, P., 2007. Promoting helping behavior with framing in dictator games. Journal ofEconomic Psychology 28, 477–486.Brock, J.M., Lange, A., Ozbay, E.Y., 2013. Dictating the risk: Experimental evidence on giving inrisky environments. American Economic Review 103, 415–37.Capraro, V., Vanzo, A., 2019. The power of moral words: Loaded language generates framingeffects in the extreme dictator game. arXiv preprint arXiv:1901.02314 .Cettolin, E., Riedl, A., Tran, G., 2017. Giving in the face of risk. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty55, 95–118.Dana, J., Weber, R.A., Kuang, J.X., 2007. Exploiting moral wiggle room: experiments demon-strating an illusory preference for fairness. Economic Theory 33, 67–80.Exley, C.L., 2016. Excusing selfishness in charitable giving: The role of risk. The Review ofEconomic Studies 83, 587–628.Frignani, N., Ponti, G., 2012. Risk versus social preferences under the veil of ignorance. EconomicsLetters 116, 143–146.Harsanyi, J.C., 1977. Morality and the theory of rational behavior. Social research , 623–656.Hauge, K.E., Brekke, K.A., Johansson, L.O., Johansson-Stenman, O., Svedsäter, H., 2016. Keepingothers in our mind or in our heart? distribution games under cognitive load. ExperimentalEconomics 19, 562–576.Iriberri, N., Rey-Biel, P., 2011. The role of role uncertainty in modified dictator games. Experi-mental Economics 14, 160–180.8Karni, E., Salmon, T., Sopher, B., 2008. Individual sense of fairness: an experimental study.Experimental Economics 11, 174–189.Korenok, O., Millner, E., Razzolini, L., et al., 2017. Feelings of ownership in dictator games.Journal of Economic Psychology 61, 145–151.Krawczyk, M., Le Lec, F., 2010. Give me a chance! an experiment in social decision under risk.Experimental Economics 13, 500–511.Mesa-Vázquez, E., Rodriguez-Lara, I., Urbano, A., et al., 2019. Standard vs random dictatorgames. The effect of role uncertainty on generosity. Technical Report. Department of EconomicTheory and Economic History of the University of Granada.Ottoni-Wilhelm, M., Vesterlund, L., Xie, H., 2017. Why do people give? testing pure and impurealtruism. American Economic Review 107, 3617–33.Rawls, J., 1971. A theory of justice (harvard, harvard university press) .Saito, K., 2013. Social preferences under risk: Equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome.American Economic Review 103, 3084–3101.Schulz, J.F., Fischbacher, U., Thöni, C., Utikal, V., 2014. Affect and fairness: Dictator gamesunder cognitive load. Journal of Economic Psychology 41, 77–87.9

Standard vs Random Dictator Games: On the Effects of Role Uncertainty and Framing on Generosity

We show that generosity is affected when we vary the level of role uncertainty, i.e., the probability that the dictator's decision will be implemented. We also show that framing matters for generosity in that subjects are less generous when they are told that their choices will be implemented with a certain probability, compared with a setting in which they are told that their choices will not be implemented with certain probability

Mesa Vázquez, Ernesto

Rodríguez Lara, Ismael

Urbano Salvador, Amparo

Repositori d'Objectes Digitals per a l'Ensenyament la Recerca i la Cultura

Standard vs random dictator games: on the effects of role uncertainty and framing on generosity

https://roderic.uv.es/bitstream/10550/82894/1/152825.pdf

Standard vs random dictator games: On the effects of role uncertainty and framing on generosity

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Repositori d'Objectes Digitals per a l'Ensenyament la Recerca i la Cultura