Normative reflection in a public good experiment

1. Normative reflection in a public good experiment Karen Evelyn Hauge ESA Rome June 2007

2. Background • Public good situations: • My choice effects your possibilities • “How should I behave?”-> Moral motivation • Norms guide behavior • Norm salience (ex: Cialdini, 1990) • Public good experiment where subjects are induced to reflect on normative aspect of situation

3. Experimental design • Public good game experiment • 3 treatments • Control: standard (16 subjects) • Recursive: 10 repetitions, groups of 4 • Between subject design • T1: Unconditional moral question (20 subjects) • “In your personal opinion, what is the ethically right thing to do? How many units should you contribute to the group project?” • T2: Conditional moral question (20 subjects) • “...If other group members on average contribute the following rounded amounts, how many units should you contribute?”

4. Results: Reported Moral Ideals • Unconditional moral question • 15/20 subjects state ideal is 10 • 5/20 subjects state ideal is between 3 and 8 • Conditional moral question • 4/20 unconditional ideals • 9/20 exactly the average of others • 5/20 ideals depends positively on average of others • 2/20 random

5. Average contributions by period

6. Individual average contributions, comparing • Control are T1: significant difference (p=0.0446), • Control and T2: not significant difference (p=0.1147) • T1 and T2: not significant difference (p=0.5880) • Regression results • Sign coeff: ideal, dummy for T1 and T2, dummy for period 9 and 10, age.

7. Conclusion • 1. Normative reflection has a • positive and significant impact on contribution behavior in a public goods experiment, when unconditional moral question • Positive but not significant impact when conditiotional moral question • Norm salience as a policy instrument • Few observations • Future research should look into anchoring effect and effect on expectations