Experimental Design
We propose an online experiment studying the role of competition and feedback on dishonesty. The experiment consists of three parts. In each part, participants can roll a virtual four-sided die 20 times and report each outcome. Each outcome is associated with a certain amount of points ranging from 0 to 3.
In Part 1, all subjects receive a piece rate payment corresponding to the total sum of points associated with their reported outcomes.
In Part 2, participants are assigned to one of the following treatments:
1) Ind No F: same as part 1
2) Ind F: same as part 1, but additionally, before rolling the die, the subjects receive information about the distribution of reports made by another random participant in part 1.
3) Comp No F: same as part 1, but subjects are competing in a winner-takes-all contest and will only be paid if they earn more points than another random participant they are matched with.
4) Comp F: same as (3), but additionally, before rolling the die, subjects receive information about the distribution of reports in part 1 made by the random participant they have been matched with in part 2.
Part 3 is identical to Part 1.
In Part 2, treatments (3) and (4), the amount of points associated with each die roll outcome is doubled in order to keep monetary incentives comparable across parts (assuming a 50% probability of winning).
At the end of the experiment, we elicit beliefs about others' behaviour, risk preferences, willingness to compete, and participants' sex at birth.
The experiment will be conducted online via Qualtrics and will involve real-time interaction thanks to SMARTRIQS software. We will recruit participants on Prolific and use a US subject pool. A typical session will last approximately 15 minutes, and participants will receive a fixed fee of £1.50 plus a performance-based bonus payment, resulting in an expected total compensation of around £18 per hour.
Additional treatments: upon funding availability, we will run a further experiment to elicit third-party beliefs on behaviour in our main experiment.