Self-selection into laboratory experiments: pro-social motives versus monetary incentives

Laboratory experiments have become a wide-spread tool in economic research. Yet, there is still doubt about how well the results from lab experiments generalize to other settings. In this paper, we investigate the self-selection process of potential subjects into the subject pool. We alter the recru...

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Main Authors:	Abeler, Johannes, Nosenzo, Daniele
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Springer 2014
Online Access:	http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29777/ http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29777/ http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29777/ http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29777/1/AbelerNosenzo_2015%20%28pdf%20article%29.pdf

id	nottingham-29777
recordtype	eprints
spelling	nottingham-297772018-06-26T12:30:29Z http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29777/ Self-selection into laboratory experiments: pro-social motives versus monetary incentives Abeler, Johannes Nosenzo, Daniele Laboratory experiments have become a wide-spread tool in economic research. Yet, there is still doubt about how well the results from lab experiments generalize to other settings. In this paper, we investigate the self-selection process of potential subjects into the subject pool. We alter the recruitment email sent to first year students, either mentioning the monetary reward associated with participation in experiments; or appealing to the importance of helping research; or both. We find that the sign-up rate drops by two-thirds if we do not mention monetary rewards. Appealing to subjects’ willingness to help research has no effect on sign-up. We then invite the so-recruited subjects to the laboratory to measure their pro-social and approval motivations using incentivized experiments. We do not find any differences between the groups, suggesting that neither adding an appeal to help research, nor mentioning monetary incentives affects the level of social preferences and approval seeking of experimental subjects. Springer 2014-06 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29777/1/AbelerNosenzo_2015%20%28pdf%20article%29.pdf Abeler, Johannes and Nosenzo, Daniele (2014) Self-selection into laboratory experiments: pro-social motives versus monetary incentives. Experimental Economics, 18 (2). pp. 195-214. ISSN 1386-4157 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10683-014-9397-9 doi:10.1007/s10683-014-9397-9 doi:10.1007/s10683-014-9397-9
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
building	Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
description	Laboratory experiments have become a wide-spread tool in economic research. Yet, there is still doubt about how well the results from lab experiments generalize to other settings. In this paper, we investigate the self-selection process of potential subjects into the subject pool. We alter the recruitment email sent to first year students, either mentioning the monetary reward associated with participation in experiments; or appealing to the importance of helping research; or both. We find that the sign-up rate drops by two-thirds if we do not mention monetary rewards. Appealing to subjects’ willingness to help research has no effect on sign-up. We then invite the so-recruited subjects to the laboratory to measure their pro-social and approval motivations using incentivized experiments. We do not find any differences between the groups, suggesting that neither adding an appeal to help research, nor mentioning monetary incentives affects the level of social preferences and approval seeking of experimental subjects.
format	Article
author	Abeler, Johannes Nosenzo, Daniele
spellingShingle	Abeler, Johannes Nosenzo, Daniele Self-selection into laboratory experiments: pro-social motives versus monetary incentives
author_facet	Abeler, Johannes Nosenzo, Daniele
author_sort	Abeler, Johannes
title	Self-selection into laboratory experiments: pro-social motives versus monetary incentives
title_short	Self-selection into laboratory experiments: pro-social motives versus monetary incentives
title_full	Self-selection into laboratory experiments: pro-social motives versus monetary incentives
title_fullStr	Self-selection into laboratory experiments: pro-social motives versus monetary incentives
title_full_unstemmed	Self-selection into laboratory experiments: pro-social motives versus monetary incentives
title_sort	self-selection into laboratory experiments: pro-social motives versus monetary incentives
publisher	Springer
publishDate	2014
url	http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29777/ http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29777/ http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29777/ http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29777/1/AbelerNosenzo_2015%20%28pdf%20article%29.pdf
first_indexed	2018-09-06T11:58:01Z
last_indexed	2018-09-06T11:58:01Z
_version_	1610859237104156672

Self-selection into laboratory experiments: pro-social motives versus monetary incentives

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