Do people behave in experiments as in the field?—evidence from donations
Open accessAbstract
Laboratory experiments are an important methodology in economics, especially in the field of behavioral economics. However, it is still debated to what extent results from laboratory experiments are informative about behavior in field settings. One highly important question about the external validity of experiments is whether the same individuals act in experiments as they would in the field. This paper presents evidence on how individuals behave in donation experiments and how the same individuals behave in a naturally occurring decision situation on charitable giving. While we find evidence that pro-social behavior is more accentuated in the lab, the data show that pro-social behavior in experiments is correlated with behavior in the field.
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Experimental measures of social preferences do not predict real life behavior well.
“Benz and Meier [2008] compare measures of social preferences with charitable giving in a field experiment and find that experimental measures do not predict real life behavior well.”
From Personality Psychology and Economics (2011) · cites this paper as Benz and Meier [2008]
Cites
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“The experiments are most similar to the experiments by Eckel and Grossman (1996).”
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Why Do Investors Hold Socially Responsible Mutual Funds?
RIEDL, A., & SMEETS, P. (2017) · The Journal of Finance · doi:10.1111/jofi.12547 · Cited by 1,378 · see citing works
Awe, the small self, and prosocial behavior
Piff, P. K., Dietze, P., Feinberg, M., Stancato, D. M., & Keltner, D. (2015) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/pspi0000018 · Cited by 1,214 · see citing works
Personality Psychology and Economics
Almlund, M., Duckworth, A. L., Heckman, J., & Kautz, T. (2011) · National Bureau of Economic Research · doi:10.3386/w16822 · Cited by 540 · see citing works
Humans display a ‘cooperative phenotype’ that is domain general and temporally stable
Peysakhovich, A., Nowak, M. A., & Rand, D. G. (2014) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/ncomms5939 · Cited by 426 · see citing works
Morishima, Y., Schunk, D., Bruhin, A., Ruff, C. C., & Fehr, E. (2012) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2012.05.021 · Cited by 296 · see citing works
Increasing altruistic and cooperative behaviour with simple moral nudges
Capraro, V., Jagfeld, G., Klein, R., Mul, M., & de Pol, I. V. (2019) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-019-48094-4 · Cited by 135 · see citing works
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- Authors
- Benz, M., & Meier, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Zurich (CH)
- Federal Reserve Bank of Boston (US)
- Corresponding author
- Meier, Stephan
- ORCID
- Meier, Stephan
- Venue
- Experimental Economics
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2008-09
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 268-281
- ISSN
- 1386-4157 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-6938
- OpenAlex
- W3121919210
- Cited by
- 428
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 28 · 2019: 32 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 28 · 2015: 29 · 2014: 31 · 2013: 35 · 2012: 26
- FWCI
- 63.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Experimental Economics (publishedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Econstor (Econstor) (submittedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering
- Keywords
- generalizability, laboratory experiments, field experiments, charitable giving, donations, prosocial behavior, behavioral economics
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