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Lab Measures of Other-Regarding Preferences Can Predict Some Related on-the-Job Behavior: Evidence from a Large Scale Field Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen V. Burks

    (Division of Social Science, University of Minnesota, Institute for the Study of Labor, Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics (CeDEx), University of Nottingham)

  • Daniele Nosenzo

    (Department of Economics, University of Nottingham.)

  • Jon Anderson

    (Division of Science and Mathematics, University of Minnesota)

  • Matthew Bombyk

    (Innovations for Poverty Action)

  • Derek Ganzhorn

    (Northwestern University School of Law)

  • Lorenz Goette

    (Institute for the Study of Labor, Department of Economics, University of Minnesota)

  • Aldo Rustichini

    (Northwestern University School of Law, University of Bonn, Institute for Applied Microeconomics)

Abstract
We measure a specific form of other-regarding behavior, costly cooperation with an anonymous other, among 645 subjects at a trucker training program in the Midwestern US. Using a sequential, strategic form of the Prisoners’ Dilemma, we categorize subjects as: Free Rider, Conditional Cooperator, and Unconditional Cooperator. We observe the subjects on the job for up to two years afterwards in two naturally-occurring choices—whether to send two types of satellite uplink messages from their trucks. The first identifies trailers requiring repair, which benefits fellow drivers, while the second benefits the experimenters by giving them some followup data. Because of the specific nature of the technology and job conditions (which we carefully review) each of these otherwise situationally similar field decisions represents an act of costly cooperation towards an anonymous other in a setting that does not admit of repeated-game or reputation-effect explanations. We find that individual differences in costly cooperation observed in the lab do predict individual differences in the field in the first choice but not the second. We suggest that this difference is linked to the difference in the social identities of the beneficiaries (fellow drivers versus experimenters), and we conjecture that whether or not individual variations in pro-sociality generalize across settings (whether in the lab or field) may depend in part on this specific contextual factor: whether the social identities, and the relevant prescriptions (or norms) linked to them that are salient for subjects (as in Akerlof and Kranton (2000); (2010)), are appropriately parallel.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen V. Burks & Daniele Nosenzo & Jon Anderson & Matthew Bombyk & Derek Ganzhorn & Lorenz Goette & Aldo Rustichini, 2015. "Lab Measures of Other-Regarding Preferences Can Predict Some Related on-the-Job Behavior: Evidence from a Large Scale Field Experiment," Discussion Papers 2015-21, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    • Handle: RePEc:not:notcdx:2015-21
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    2. Bernd Frick & Anica Rose & André Kolle, 2017. "Gender Diversity is Detrimental to Team Performance: Evidence from a Field Experiment," Working Papers Dissertations 23, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    3. Armin Falk & Fabian Kosse & Pia Pinger & Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch & Thomas Deckers, 2021. "Socioeconomic Status and Inequalities in Children’s IQ and Economic Preferences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(9), pages 2504-2545.
    4. Breitkopf, Laura & Chowdhury, Shyamal K. & Priyam, Shambhavi & Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah & Sutter, Matthias, 2020. "Do economic preferences of children predict behavior?," DICE Discussion Papers 342, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    5. Kosfeld, Michael & Essl, Andrea & Von Bieberstein, Frauke & Kröll, Markus, 2018. "Sales Performance and Social Preferences," CEPR Discussion Papers 12904, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Mehmood, Sultan & Naseer, Shaheen & Chen, Daniel L., 2024. "Altruism in governance: Insights from randomized training for Pakistan's junior ministers," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    7. Frauke Bieberstein & Jonas Gehrlein & Anna Güntner, 2020. "Teamwork revisited: social preferences and knowledge acquisition in the field," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 90(4), pages 591-614, May.
    8. Antonio M. Espin & Francisco Reyes-Pereira & Luis F. Ciria, 2017. "Organizations should know their people: A behavioral economics approach," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 1(S), pages 41-48, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    experiments; generalizability; external validity; parallelism; social identity; otherregarding behavior; costly cooperation; social preferences; prisoners’ dilemma; trucker; truckload;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B4 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology
    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles

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