Social Approval, Competition, and Cooperation

Pan, Xiaofei; Houser, Daniel

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1937305

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 42 publications

(16 reference statements)

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“…Interestingly, in a similar experiment where subjects engage in a real-effort task to generate donations to a charity, Jones and Linardi (2012) find that making contributions observable to future participants increases the effort of male participants but decreases the effort of female participants. Other related studies include Rege and Telle (2004), Dana, Weber, and Kuang (2007), Andreoni and Bernheim (2009), Ariely, Bracha, and Meier (2009), Xiao and Houser (2011), Pan and Houser (2011), Carpenter and Myers (2010), Linardi and McConnell (2011), and Tadelis (2011). 4 Further evidence can be found in field studies on household energy consumption (Schultz et al, 2007), charitable giving (Della Vigna et al, 2011) and voter turnout (Gerber et al 2008).…”

Section: Observability and Social Enforcementmentioning

confidence: 97%

Does Social Judgment Diminish Rule Breaking?

Salmon

Serra

2014

SSRN Journal

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We experimentally investigate the extent to which social observability of one's actions and the possibility of social non-monetary judgment affect the decision to engage in rule breaking behavior. We consider three rule breaking scenarios-theft, bribery and embezzlement-in the absence of any formal enforcement mechanism. By involving a student sample characterized by cultural heterogeneity due to immigration of ancestors to the US, we are able to investigate whether the effectiveness of informal social enforcement mechanisms is conditional on the cultural background of the decision-maker. A total of 52 countries are represented in our sample, ranging from Low Rule of Law countries such as Liberia and Nigeria to High Rule of Law countries such as Sweden and Norway. Our data provide evidence that people with different cultural backgrounds do respond differently to increased social observability of their actions. In particular, while subjects that identify culturally with a High Rule of Law country respond to social obervability and judgment by lowering their propensities to engage in rule breaking, subjects that identify with Low Rule of Law countries do not. Our findings suggest that development policies that rely purely on social judgment to enforce behavior may not work with Low Rule of Law populations.

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Section: Observability and Social Enforcementmentioning

confidence: 97%

Does Social Judgment Diminish Rule Breaking?

Salmon

Serra

2014

SSRN Journal

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“…Social approval research shows that people prefer being viewed positively (Ariely, Bracha, & Meier, ; Lacetera & Macis, ; Masclet, Noussair, Tucker, & Villeval, ; Noussair & Tucker, ; Pan & Houser, ; Rege & Telle, ). As greed is generally socially disapproved (Grégroire et al, 2010; Haynes et al, ; Wang & Murnighan, ), learning that an opponent sees one's R1 behavior as greedy should motivate less greedy behavior in R2.…”

Section: Study 4: Others' Perceptions Of Own Greed and Contagion Of Gmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is greed contagious? Four experimental studies

Cardella

Kugler

Anderson

et al. 2019

Behavioral Decision Making

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Do people become greedier when interacting with others they perceive to be greedy? It has been speculated that greed contagion exits and may have influenced the 2008 financial collapse. We examined this possibility in four experimental studies using a common pool resource dilemma. Specifically, whether participants' second‐round (R2) withdrawal from the common pool was influenced (a) by their assessment of how greedy their opponents' first‐round (R1) withdrawal was, (b) by R1 opponents' reputation for being greedy, (c) by observing past behavior of others in unrelated interactions, and (d) when R1 opponents directly confronted them with an assessment of their own greediness of their R1 withdrawal. In addition, Study 2 examined R2 interactions involving new opponents. Taken together, results suggest that there is contagion of greed. However, the connection appears to be driven by participants adjusting to their opponent's actual behavior, not by their evaluation of the greediness of such behavior. It seems that perceptions of greed do not mediate future behavior and, thus, are not necessarily contagious, but norms of selfish behavior are. In this sense, greed perceptions appear to by epiphenomenal in that they are an incidental by‐product of the behavioral interaction. We discuss the implications of these findings and suggest directions for further research.

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“…Next, two further key differences between our work and those of Masclet et al () and Dugar () are that, unlike those studies, we compare the effectiveness of absolute versus relative ratings (by means of our Public and Private treatments) and focus on the role played by costly assignment of ratings (through our Private with Cost treatment). Our design differs also from the ones presented in Greiff and Paetzel (), in which players have heterogeneous endowments earned by means of an intelligence test, and Pan and Houser (), as the latter work includes in all treatments not only social approval but also competition for social approval.…”

Section: The Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Through our experiment, based on a finitely repeated public goods game setting, we sought to contribute to the existing experimental literature on public goods provision by analyzing different decentralized mechanisms based on payoff‐irrelevant peer approval . As Pan and Houser () pointed out, in commenting on Holländer's () pioneering contribution on peer approval and cooperation, “The theory formalizes the idea that the extent to which one values peer approval can impact one's cooperative actions in social dilemma environments. Consequently, for the purpose of institution design, it is crucial to know which environmental features might encourage people to highly value peer approval ” (p. 311, italics added).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Through a series of one‐shot games, they show that the expression of social approval enhances cooperation and that social approval is more effective if subjects receive a noisy signal about others' contributions. Pan and Houser () explore experimentally public goods games with competition for social approval and various nonmonetary prizes as rewards and show that individuals value earning approval by their peers more when winners receive noncash rewards that are both unique and durable.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The impact of peer ratings on cooperation: The role of information and cost of rating

Faillo

Grieco

Zarri

2019

J Public Economic Theory

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In this study, we experimentally analyze the effectiveness of payoff‐irrelevant peer‐to‐peer ratings as a cooperation enforcement device in a finitely repeated public goods game setting. We run two treatments that differ in the amount of information on own and others' received rating points provided to the players, whereas, in a third treatment, we analyze peer approval when assigning ratings to others is costly. In particular, we wonder whether, even under anonymity and in the absence of reputational concerns, (a) players rate others' contribution decisions in the expected direction and (b) the peer rating mechanisms under study foster cooperation and welfare. Our findings reveal that, in the two costless rating treatments, peer rating concerns lead to higher contributions and efficiency, compared to our control. Introducing a small fixed cost for assigning rating points results in a very high percentage of subjects deciding not to rate others' behavior, so that cooperation cannot be enforced.

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Social Approval, Competition, and Cooperation

Cited by 8 publications

References 42 publications

Does Social Judgment Diminish Rule Breaking?

Does Social Judgment Diminish Rule Breaking?

Is greed contagious? Four experimental studies

The impact of peer ratings on cooperation: The role of information and cost of rating

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