Prosocial signaling with a history

Last registered on August 02, 2022

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Prosocial signaling with a history

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0009689

Initial registration date

July 02, 2022

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

July 12, 2022, 1:53 PM EDT

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

Last updated

August 02, 2022, 7:16 PM EDT

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name

Tilman Fries

Affiliation

WZB Berlin Social Science Center

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2022-08-03

End date

2024-08-31

Keywords

Behavior, Lab

Additional Keywords

Signaling

JEL code(s)

D83, C91

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

Social media and internet search engines give easy access to information about others. This paper studies the behavioral consequences when individuals know more about others they interact with. In principle, increased knowledge limits the ability of decision makers to signal their type through their actions. Thus, if decision makers want to signal a socially desired type, increased knowledge in turn decreases the supply of socially desired behavior. There are however factors that might lead to "unlearning", such as a belief that people can change or that yesterday's news might be forgotten which can keep reputational incentives strong even as individuals learn more about each other's past. I test the behavioral effect of increased knowledge in an experiment and investigate which factors lead to unlearning.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Fries, Tilman. 2022. "Prosocial signaling with a history." AEA RCT Registry. August 02. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.9689-2.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The experiment varies what an observer knows about a decision maker (DM) who is about to make a moral decision. Further interventions vary whether the observer's knowledge about the DM refers to a recent or a past decision of the DM and whether the observer receives information about the DM just before the DM decides or two weeks earlier.

Intervention Start Date

2022-08-03

Intervention End Date

2022-09-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Decision to revise a moral decision.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Donation share on a scale from 0 - 100.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Please refer to the attached pdf for details on variable definitions.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Participants first state what share of a budget they want to allocate to a charity A. They then decide what share of a budget they want to allocate to a charity B. In the third task, participants play a modified sender-receiver game where the receiver has to estimate sender's donation share to charity B. The sender can send information to the receiver before the receiver makes the estimate. Incentives between sender and receiver are misaligned.

In the Baseline treatment, participants give answers to all three stages of the experiment on the same day (in one session). In addition, the receiver receives a signal about the sender's charity A decision before reporting an estimate in the sender-receiver game.

In Treatment A receivers do not receive a signal about the sender's charity A decision before reporting an estimate.

Treatment B introduces a two week time delay between the donation to charity A and the donation to charity B and the trust game. That is, there are two sessions: In session 1, participants only make the donation choice to charity A. In session 2, participants make the donation choice to charity B and participate in the sender-receiver game. Session 2 takes place two weeks after session 1.

Treatment C introduces a two week delay between the donation to charity B and the sender-receiver game. That is, there are two sessions: in session 1, participants make the donation choices to charities A and B. In session 2, participants take part in the sender-receiver game. Session 2 takes place two weeks after session 1.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

Randomization will be implemented through the experimental software (otree). Participants click on a link to participate in the experiment and are then randomized into one of the four treatments.

Randomization Unit

Individual

Was the treatment clustered?