Effects of double-anonymity on pro- and anti-social behavior: Experimental evidence from a lab in the field

• Published in: Journal of behavioral and experimental economics Vol. 81; pp. 216 - 225
• Main Author: Vorlaufer, Tobias
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Inc 01.08.2019; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Anonymity; Antisocial behavior; Antisocial personality disorder; Behavioral decision theory; Decision making; Deviance; Dictator Game; Double Anonymity; Experimenter-Demand Effects; Field Experiments; Happiness; Joy-of-Destruction; Privacy; Researcher subject relations; Social behavior; Treatment methods; Joy-of-Destruction; Experimenter-Demand Effects; Dictator Game; Field Experiments; Double Anonymity
• ISSN: 2214-8043; 2214-8051
• DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2019.07.001

•Different degrees of subject-experimenter anonymity are studied.•With a dictator game and joy-of-destruction mini-game in rural Namibia.•Strict subject-experimenter anonymity does not affect behavior.•Revealing decisions to experimenter affects behavior in 1 out of 2 treatments. This paper examines whether different degrees of subject-experimenter anonymity influence pro- and anti-social behavior in lab-in-the-field experiments. To do this, a Dictator Game (DG) and a Joy-of-Destruction Mini-Game (JoD) were conducted with 480 subjects in rural Namibia. In addition to a strict double-anonymous treatment two single-anonymous treatments are introduced. One of them involves the disclosure of decisions directly to the experimenter. Thereby, it is possible to disentangle the effect of pure double-anonymity from the procedure of the decision-making. The presented results carry relevant implications for a methodologically sound implementation of lab-in-the-field experiments. Both in the DG and JoD, strict double-anonymous procedures do not produce significantly different behavior than under single-anonymity. Whether revealing decisions personally to the experimenter influences individual behavior cannot be consistently answered with the obtained results. The personal disclosure leads to significantly more pro-social and less anti-social behavior in one out of two treatment comparisons. From a conservative perspective, researchers are however advised to assure sufficient privacy for subjects from experimenters during the decision-making process.