Karen Evelyn Hauge

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Normative reflection in a public good experiment

• Karen Evelyn Hauge
• ESA Rome June 2007

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Background

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

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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?

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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

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Average contributions by period
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• Individual average contributions, comparing
• Control are T1 significant difference
  (p0.0446),
• Control and T2 not significant difference
  (p0.1147)
• T1 and T2 not significant difference (p0.5880)
• Regression results
• Sign coeff ideal, dummy for T1 and T2, dummy for
  period 9 and 10, age.

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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