10.5061/DRYAD.S1VB4
Burton-Chellew, Maxwell N.
University of Oxford
El Mouden, Claire
University of Oxford
West, Stuart A.
University of Oxford
Data from: Conditional cooperation and confusion in public-goods experiments
Dryad
dataset
2016
fairness
Public-good
strategy-method
social-preferences
Altruism
conditional-cooperation
inequity-aversion
2016-03-24T14:51:12Z
2016-03-24T14:51:12Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1509740113
66065 bytes
1
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Economic experiments are often used to study if humans altruistically
value the welfare of others. A canonical result from public-good games is
that humans vary in how they value the welfare of others, dividing into
fair-minded conditional cooperators, who match the cooperation of others,
and selfish noncooperators. However, an alternative explanation for the
data are that individuals vary in their understanding of how to maximize
income, with misunderstanding leading to the appearance of cooperation. We
show that (i) individuals divide into the same behavioral types when
playing with computers, whom they cannot be concerned with the welfare of;
(ii) behavior across games with computers and humans is correlated and can
be explained by variation in understanding of how to maximize income;
(iii) misunderstanding correlates with higher levels of cooperation; and
(iv) standard control questions do not guarantee understanding. These
results cast doubt on certain experimental methods and demonstrate that a
common assumption in behavioral economics experiments, that choices reveal
motivations, will not necessarily hold.
Burton_Chellew_CCC_Dryad_dataThe individual data from the manuscript,
sheet 2 contains explanatory key/legend