Big experimenter is watching you! Anonymity and prosocial behavior in the laboratory

• Published in: Games and economic behavior Vol. 75; no. 1; pp. 17 - 34
• Main Authors: Barmettler, Franziska, Fehr, Ernst, Zehnder, Christian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Duluth Elsevier Inc 01.05.2012; Academic Press
• Subjects: Anonymity; Behavioural economics; Experimental economics; Experimenters; Game theory; Laboratory experiments; Preferences; Prosocial behavior; Scrutiny; Social behaviour; Social sciences; Studies; Subject; Anonymity; C91; Scrutiny; Laboratory experiments; D03; Prosocial behavior

Researchers have demonstrated that the presence of people with social preferences has important economic implications. However, the empirical basis of this research relies to a large extent on experiments that do not provide anonymity between experimenter and subject. It has been argued that this la...