@techreport{7cf9f330cb46465296b817439d737270,
title = "Meta-Context and Choice-Set Effects in Mini-Dictator Games",
abstract = "Knowing that some action is possible in principle, even if not available, could affect behaviour. This may happen because a game is perceived as part of a larger game or {\textquoteleft}metacontext{\textquoteright} that includes its outcomes as a proper subset. In an experiment we test the effects of meta-context and specific choice sets on pro-social behaviour in a series of binary mini-Dictator games by eliciting participants{\textquoteright} normative evaluations, fitting a norm-dependent utility, and analysing the residuals. We find that participants{\textquoteright} normative evaluations in mini-Dictator games derive from the meta-context (a standard Dictator game) and explain a sizeable portion of variance in choices. Restricted choice sets of mini-Dictator games also influence participants{\textquoteright} decisions: they take into account dictator{\textquoteright}s losses and recipient{\textquoteright}s gains from choosing the prosocial action as fractions of their respective maximum payoffs. This choice-set effect correlates with individual measures of rule-following propensity supporting the idea that it is also normative. Thus, there are two types of normative reasoning that contribute to pro-social behaviour: a meta-context and a choice-set effect.",
keywords = "mini-Dictator games, meta-context, choice-set effects, norms, norm-dependent utility",
author = "Folco Panizza and Alexander Vostroknutov and Giorgio Coricelli",
year = "2019",
month = apr,
day = "16",
doi = "10.26481/umagsb.2019010",
language = "English",
series = "GSBE Research Memoranda",
publisher = "Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics",
number = "010",
address = "Netherlands",
type = "WorkingPaper",
institution = "Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics",
}