Helping Behavior and Group Size

Last registered on June 17, 2018

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Helping Behavior and Group Size

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0002982

Initial registration date

May 12, 2018

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

May 15, 2018, 1:59 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated

June 17, 2018, 12:26 PM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country

Germany

Region

Hamburg

Primary Investigator

Name

Pol Campos-Mercade

Affiliation

Lund University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2018-06-18

End date

2018-06-29

Keywords

Welfare

Additional Keywords

Help, Bystander Effect, Situations.

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Abstract

Will a person in need of help be more likely to be helped when there are one or several potential helpers? Dozens of experiments have led social psychologists to conclude that the answer to this question depends entirely on the situation. This project uses game theory to predict in what situations one potential helper is more likely to provide help than a group of several potential helpers, and in what situations the opposite is true. The theoretical model concludes that in situations where few potential helpers are willing to help, then help is more likely to be provided when many people can help. However, in situations where most potential helpers are willing to help, help is more likely to be provided when only one person can help. I test this model in a lab experiment.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Campos-Mercade, Pol. 2018. "Helping Behavior and Group Size." AEA RCT Registry. June 17. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2982-3.0

Former Citation

Campos-Mercade, Pol. 2018. "Helping Behavior and Group Size." AEA RCT Registry. June 17. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2982/history/30845

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2018-06-18

Intervention End Date

2018-06-29

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Help_second_1, Help_second_2, Help_second_3, Help_second_23 (between-test), Nethelp_second_23 (between-test), Help_third (main within-test).

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Help_second_1 = Takes value 1 if the subject chose to Pay in the second stage when he is in a group with 1 AP and 0 otherwise.
Help_second_2 = Takes value 1 if the subject chose to Pay in the second stage when he is in a group with 2 AP and 0 otherwise.
Help_second_3 = Takes value 1 if the subject chose to Pay in the second stage when he is in a group with 3 AP and 0 otherwise.
Help_second_23 = Help_second_2 + Help_second_3.
Nethelp_second_23 = Help_second_23 - Help_first_2 - Help_first_3 (see secondary outcomes for the definition of Help_first)
Help_third = Includes all the variables about the decisions whether to Pay in the third stage, depending on group size and depending on the composition of the other AP in the group.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Help_first_1, Help_first_2, Help_first_3, Beliefs

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Help_first_1 = Takes value 1 if the subject chose to Pay in the first stage when he is in a group with 1 AP and 0 otherwise.
Help_first_2 = Takes value 1 if the subject chose to Pay in the first stage when he is in a group with 2 AP and 0 otherwise.
Help_first_3 = Takes value 1 if the subject chose to Pay in the first stage when he is in a group with 3 AP and 0 otherwise.
Beliefs = Belief elicitation across all stages.

Experimental Design

There will be 378 subjects. Each session will consist of 18 subjects. Subjects are initially divided between Active Participants (AP) and Passive Participants (PP). The AP earnings depend on their decisions, while the PP earnings depend on the decisions of the AP. However, the PP do not know that they are PP until the end. They therefore make hypothetical decisions throughout the experiment.

The game: Subjects are placed in groups of one, two, or three AP and one PP. Within each group, the AP start with 10€ and the PP starts with 0€. The AP then play the following game: they can choose to Pay 3€ or to Not Pay. To Pay 3€ means to get 7€ instead of 10€. If at least one AP in the group chooses to Pay, the PP gets 5€. If none of the AP chooses to Pay, then the PP gets 0€.

The experiment has three stages. In the first stage, subjects play this game in groups of one, two, and three AP (in random order). The decision that subjects make when they are in the group of one AP is called "Decision 1".

In the second stage, subjects play the same game but this time they get information about what other AP in their group chose in Decision 1. More concretely, they are told that the other AP in their group have been randomly selected from a "pool" of 6 AP. They are then told how many of these 6 AP of the pool chose to Pay in Decision 1.

The third stage uses the strategy method to elicit subjects' decision whether to Pay depending on how many of the other AP in their pool chose to Pay in Decision 1.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Randomization done by computer. Note that randomization is endogenous: those who chose to (Not) Pay in Decision 1 are more likely to be in a pool in which most people chose to (Not) Pay. However, given that someone chose to (Not) Pay in Decision 1, that subject is effectively randomly assigned into either of the pools.

Randomization Unit

Individual randomization.

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

378 subjects.

Sample size: planned number of observations

378 observations.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

Out of the 378 observations, 252 will be AP and 126 will be PP. The AP will be equally divided between those who see a pool in which most AP chose to Pay in Decision 1 and those who see a pool in which most AP chose to Not Pay in Decision 1. All the 126 PP will see situations in which most AP in their pool chose to Not Pay. Therefore, I expect about 252 observations where AP are in a pool in which most AP chose to Not Pay in Decision 1 and 126 where AP are in a pool in which most AP chose to Pay in Decision 1.

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Power analysis for the main between-subject hypothesis: the weak bystander effect (defined as the difference between the percentage of bystanders helping when alone and when in a group) increases as the percentage of bystanders who chose to Pay in Decision 1 increases. If, for example, subjects help with the same frequency when they are alone regardless of the pool composition, then this hypothesis means that subjects are more likely to choose to Pay when they are in a group in which most people chose to Not Pay in Decision 1 than when they are in a group in which most people chose to Pay in Decision 1. This hypothesis is tested between-subject (second stage) and within-subject (third stage). I performed the power analyses through simulations (the STATA code is available upon request). I assume that 60% of the subjects choose to Pay in Decision 1. I only analyze the decisions of those subjects when they are in groups of 2 and 3 AP. I assume that 55% (70%) of the subjects choose to Pay in the pool in which most AP chose to (Not) Pay in Decision 1. Therefore, I study an effect size of 15 percentage points. The test I perform is a Wilcoxon ranksum test. Power to find a significant effect at the 5% level for the between-subject test: 85.3%. Power to find a significant effect at the 5% level for the within-subject test: 99%.

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB