How do monetary incentives affect the measurement of social preferences? https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:econwp:482&r=&r=exp
"… the use of monetary #incentives, as well as the size of the stakes, have little impact on choices at the descriptive levels, as well as for the identification of qualitatively distinct preferences types. They appear to matter, however, for the quantitative identification of the strength and the precision of social preferences.
… the #socialPreferences of the general population are likely overestimated when elicited with hypothetical stakes. If one is solely interested in having a rough, descriptive measure of social preferences at the aggregate level, or if one wants to identify qualitatively distinct preferences types, then relying on hypothetical stakes might suffice.
… if one is interested in making a quantitative assessment of subjects’ other-regardingness, e.g., in order to make quantitative predictions, then our result suggest that using monetary incentives is advisable,
… no evidence that using a larger stake size improves the identification of social preferences"
#ExperimentalEcon #BehavioralEconomics

Artificial intelligence, distributional #fairness, and pivotality https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05165240&r=&r=ain
"#AI training introduces a significant shift – individual decisions no longer terminate with the present but… influence the future behavior of scalable algorithms. This amplifies the impact of individual actions, creating lasting #externalities. Yet, the aggregation of data from many individuals may lead to diffused #responsibility, weakening the sense of pivotality. … leading to less prosocial behavior compared to a situation with high perceived pivotality for algorithmic outcomes.
… removing pivotality led to increased #selfishness in how humans trained the algorithm. Importantly, this change in revealed #socialPreferences was driven by a shift in individual responsibility (the power over one’s own or others’ fate) rather than the incentive structures (the expected additional payoff of one’s current decisions through the AI’s training).
… findings reveal a positive correlation between participants’ beliefs about others’ revealed preferences in generating training data and their own AI training choices when they were pivotal for others’ payoffs. This pattern points to a potential #falseConsensus effect or belief distortion mechanism, where participants justify selfish behavior by assuming others are also selfish, rather than attempting to offset others’ selfishness through prosocial actions."
#ExperimentalEcon

A not so great observation for #experimentalEcon:
"Results indicate that misunderstanding is common: the proportion of participants who misunderstood ranged from 22 % (Dictator Game) to 70 % (#Trust Game) in the online samples and from 22 % (Dictator Game) to 53 % (Public Goods Game) in the lab sample. Incentivizing the comprehension questions had no significant impact on misunderstanding, but #numeracy was associated with lower misunderstanding. Misunderstanding also predicted increased prosocial behavior in several of the games. Our findings suggest that misunderstanding may be important in explaining prosocial behavior, making it more complicated to draw clear inferences about #socialPreferences from experimental data."
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107039
That's why I (almost) always included a comprehension pre-test before the actual experiment.

Women’s interest in strong men adapts to environmental cues of potential threat https://www.psypost.org/womens-interest-in-strong-men-adapts-to-environmental-cues-of-potential-threat/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #StrongMen #EnvironmentalCues #PotentialThreat #Research #SocialPreferences

The Missing Type: Where are the Inequality Averse (Students)?
https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4767248
"Younger & more educated individuals not only tend to have lower degrees of other-regardingness but this reduction in other-regardingness nullifies behindness aversion among students. Differences in income do not seem to affect #socialPreferences.
…provide a new cautionary tale that insights from student populations might not extrapolate to the general population."
#ExperimentalEcon #boundedRationality

#SocialPreferences: fundamental characteristics & economic consequences http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:econwp:432&r=exp
…overview of the empirically identified characteristics of distributional preferences and how they are affected by merit, luck, and risk considerations as well as by concerns for equality of opportunity.… the majority of individuals have some sort of social preference while purely self-interested subjects are a minority
#ExperimentalEcon #BoundedRationality

#SocialPreferences and Deliberately Stochastic Behavior http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2304.14977&r=exp
#BoundedRationality