TY - THES A1 - Stolley, Florian T1 - Four essays on altruism and compliance T1 - Vier Studien zu altruistischem und normenkonformem Verhalten N2 - There are numerous situations in which people ask for something or make a request, e.g. asking a favor, asking for help or requesting compliance with specific norms. For this reason, how to ask for something in order to increase people’s willingness to fulfill such requests is one of the most important question for many people working in various different fields of responsibility such as charitable giving, marketing, management or policy making. This dissertation consists of four chapters that deal with the effects of small changes in the decision-making environment on altruistic decision-making and compliance behavior. Most notably, written communication as an influencing factor is the focus of the first three chapters. The starting point was the question how to devise a request in order to maximize its chance of success (Chapter 1). The results of the first chapter originate the ideas for the second and third chapter. Chapter 2 analyzes how communication by a neutral third-party, i.e. a text from the experimenters that either reminds potential benefactors of their responsibility or highlights their freedom of choice, affects altruistic decision-making. Chapter 3 elaborates on the effect of thanking people in advance when asking them for help. While being not as closely related to the other chapters as the three first ones are, the fourth chapter deals as well with the question how compliance (here: compliance with norms and rules) is affected by subtle manipulations of the environment in which decisions are made. This chapter analyzes the effect of default settings in a tax return on tax compliance. In order to study the research questions outlined above, controlled experiments were conducted. Chapter 1, which analyzes the effect of text messages on the decision to give something to another person, employs a mini-dictator game. The recipient sends a free-form text message to the dictator before the latter makes a binary decision whether or not to give part of her or his endowment to the recipient. We find that putting effort into the message by writing a long note without spelling mistakes increases dictators’ willingness to give. Moreover, writing in a humorous way and mentioning reasons why the money is needed pays off. Furthermore, men and women seem to react differently to some message categories. Only men react positively to efficiency arguments, while only women react to messages that emphasize the dictator’s power and responsibility. Building on this last result, Chapter 2 attempts to disentangle the effect of reminding potential benefactors of their responsibility for the potential beneficiary and the effect of highlighting their decision power and freedom of choice on altruistic decision-making by studying the effects of two different texts on giving in a dictator game. We find that only men react positively to a text that stresses their responsibility for the recipient by giving more to her or him, whereas only women seem to react positively to a text that emphasizes their decision power and freedom of choice. Chapter 3 focuses on the compliance with a request. In the experiment, participants are asked to provide a detailed answer to an open question. Compliance is measured by the effort participants spend on answering the question. The treatment variable is whether or not they see the text “thanks in advance.” We find that participants react negatively by putting less effort into complying with the request in response to the phrase “thanks in advance.” Chapter 4 studies the effect of prefilled tax returns with mostly inaccurate default values on tax compliance. In a laboratory experiment, participants earn income by performing a real-effort task and must subsequently file a tax return for three consecutive rounds. In the main treatment, the tax return is prefilled with a default value, resulting from participants’ own performance in previous rounds, which varies in its relative size. The results suggest that there is no lasting effect of a default value on tax honesty, neither for relatively low nor relatively high defaults. However, participants who face a default that is lower than their true income in the first round evade significantly and substantially more taxes in this round than participants in the control treatment without a default. N2 - Es fallen einem zahlreiche Situationen ein, in denen Menschen um etwas bitten, sei es um Unterstützung oder um das Befolgen bestimmter Regeln oder Normen. Die Frage, wie man eine Bitte formulieren muss, um die Bereitschaft der Menschen zu erhöhen, diese Bitte zu erfüllen, ist daher eine äußerst wichtige für viele Menschen, die in ganz unterschiedlichen Bereichen arbeiten, beispielsweise in Hilfsorganisationen, im Marketing, im Management oder auch in der Politikberatung. Diese Dissertation besteht aus vier Kapiteln, die sich mit den Auswirkungen kleiner Veränderungen in der Entscheidungsumgebung auf altruistische Entscheidungen sowie unterstützendes und regelkonformes Verhalten befassen. Schriftliche Kommunikation als Einflussfaktor steht hierbei im Mittelpunkt der ersten drei Kapitel. Ausgangspunkt war die Frage, wie man eine Bitte formulieren muss, um ihre Erfolgsaussichten zu erhöhen (Kapitel 1). Aus den Ergebnissen des ersten Kapitels resultieren die Ideen für das zweite und dritte Kapitel. In Kapitel 2 wird untersucht, wie sich Kommunikation durch einen neutralen Dritten - ein Text der Experimentatoren, der potenzielle Wohltäter entweder an ihre Verantwortung oder ihre Entscheidungsfreiheit erinnert - auf eine altruistische Entscheidung auswirkt. In Kapitel 3 wird analysiert, was für einen Effekt es auf die Hilfsbereitschaft von Teilnehmern hat, wenn man ihnen bereits im Voraus für ihre Unterstützung dankt. Obwohl das vierte Kapitel weniger eng mit den anderen Kapiteln verbunden ist, als es die ersten drei sind, geht es auch hier um die Frage, wie sich die Bereitschaft der Teilnehmer, Normen zu befolgen, durch kleine Änderungen der Entscheidungsumgebung erhöhen lässt. In diesem Kapitel wird untersucht, welchen Einfluss vorausgefüllte Steuererklärungen auf die Steuerhinterziehung haben. Zur Beantwortung der oben genannten Forschungsfragen wurden Experimente durchgeführt. In Kapitel 1 wird ein Mini-Diktatorspiel verwendet, um herauszufinden, welchen Effekt Textnachrichten auf die Entscheidung haben, einer anderen Person etwas abzugeben. Die Person in der Rolle des Diktators liest eine vom Empfänger geschriebene Nachricht, bevor sie oder er die binäre Entscheidung trifft, einen Teil der Anfangsausstattung an den Empfänger abzugeben. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Diktatoren eher bereit sind, etwas abzugeben, wenn sich die Empfänger beim Schreiben der Nachricht bemüht haben, indem sie längere Nachrichten mit weniger Rechtschreibfehlern schreiben. Außerdem erhöhen humorvolle Nachrichten und welche, die Gründe nennen, wofür die Empfänger das Geld brauchen, die Bereitschaft der Diktatoren, Geld abzugeben. Darüber hinaus scheinen Männer und Frauen auf einige Nachrichteninhalte unterschiedlich zu reagieren. Nur Männer reagieren positiv auf Effizienzargumente, während nur Frauen auf Nachrichten reagieren, die die Macht und Verantwortung des Diktators unterstreichen. Aufbauend auf diesem letzten Ergebnis versucht das zweite Kapitel, die Effekte der Betonung der Entscheidungsmacht und der Betonung der Verantwortung auf altruistisches Handeln zu trennen. Hierzu wird der Effekt von zwei Texten auf Entscheidungen im Diktatorspiel untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass nur Männer positiv auf die Betonung ihrer Verantwortung reagieren, während Frauen tendenziell mehr abgeben, wenn ihre Entscheidungsmacht und Entscheidungsfreiheit hervorgehoben wird. KW - experiment KW - Experiment KW - Nudging KW - nudging KW - communication KW - Kommunikation Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-428013 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Bruttel, Lisa Verena A1 - Felgendreher, Simon A1 - Güth, Werner A1 - Hertwig, Ralph T1 - Strategic ignorance in repeated prisoners’ dilemma experiments and its effects on the dynamics of voluntary cooperation T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - Being ignorant of key aspects of a strategic interaction can represent an advantage rather than a handicap. We study one particular context in which ignorance can be beneficial: iterated strategic interactions in which voluntary cooperation may be sustained into the final round if players voluntarily forego knowledge about the time horizon. We experimentally examine this option to remain ignorant about the time horizon in a finitely repeated two-person prisoners’ dilemma game. We confirm that pairs without horizon knowledge avoid the drop in cooperation that otherwise occurs toward the end of the game. However, this effect is superposed by cooperation declining more rapidly in pairs without horizon knowledge during the middle phase of the game, especially if players do not know that the other player also wanted to remain ignorant of the time horizon. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 10 KW - strategic ignorance KW - cooperation KW - prisoners' dilemma KW - experiment Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-431881 SN - 2628-653X IS - 10 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Bruttel, Lisa Verena A1 - Güth, Werner A1 - Hertwig, Ralph A1 - Orland, Andreas T1 - Do people harness deliberate ignorance to avoid envy and its detrimental effects? T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - Envy is an unpleasant emotion. If individuals anticipate that comparing their payoff with the (potentially higher) payoff of others will make them envious, they may want to actively avoid information about other people’s payoffs. Given the opportunity to reduce another person’s payoff, an individual’s envy may trigger behavior that is detrimental to welfare. In this case, if individuals anticipate that they will react in a welfare-reducing way, they may also avoid information about other people’s payoffs from the outset. We investigated these two hypotheses using three experiments. We found that 13% of our potentially envious subjects avoided information when they did not have the opportunity to reduce another participant’s payoff. Psychological scales do not explain this behavior. We also found that voluntarily uninformed subjects did neither deduct less of the payoff nor less frequently than subjects who could not avoid the information. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 17 KW - envy KW - emotion regulation KW - deliberate ignorance KW - punishment KW - experiment Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-444463 SN - 2628-653X IS - 17 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Bruttel, Lisa Verena A1 - Stolley, Florian A1 - Utikal, Verena T1 - Getting a Yes BT - An Experiment on the Power of Asking T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - This paper studies how the request for a favor has to be devised in order to maximize its chance of success. We present results from a mini-dictator game, in which the recipient can send a free-form text message to the dictator before the latter decides. We find that putting effort into the message, writing in a humorous way and mentioning reasons why the money is needed pays off. Additionally, we find differences in the behavior of male and female dictators. Only men react positively to efficiency arguments, while only women react to messages that emphasize the dictator’s power and responsibility. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 2 KW - dictator game KW - communication KW - inequality KW - text analysis KW - experiment Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-427638 SN - 2628-653X IS - 2 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Bruttel, Lisa Verena T1 - Is There a Loyalty-Enhancing Effect of Retroactive Price-Reduction Schemes? T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - This paper presents an experiment on the effect of retroactive price-reduction schemes on buyers’ repeated purchase decisions. Such schemes promise buyers a reduced price for all units that are bought in a certain time frame if the total quantity that is purchased passes a given threshold. This study finds a loyalty-enhancing effect of retroactive price-reduction schemes only if the buyers ex-ante expected that entering into the scheme would maximize their monetary gain, but later learn that they should leave the scheme. Furthermore, the effect crucially hinges on the framing of the price reduction. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 5 KW - rebate and discount KW - buyer behavior KW - risk aversion KW - loss aversion KW - regulation of dominant firms KW - experiment Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-427688 SN - 2628-653X IS - 5 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Bruttel, Lisa Verena A1 - Nithammer, Juri A1 - Stolley, Florian T1 - ”Thanks in Advance” BT - The Negative Effect of a Polite Phrase on Compliance with a Request T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - This paper studies the effect of the commonly used phrase “thanks in advance” on compliance with a small request. In a controlled laboratory experiment we ask participants to give a detailed answer to an open question. The treatment variable is whether or not they see the phrase “thanks in advance.” Our participants react to the treatment by exerting less effort in answering the request even though they perceive the phrase as polite. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 7 KW - compliance behavior KW - gratitude KW - reciprocity KW - experiment Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-427706 SN - 2628-653X IS - 7 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Späth, Maximilian T1 - It’s me again… Ask Avoidance and the Dynamics of Charitable Giving T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - Charities typically ask potential donors repeatedly for a donation. These repeated requests might trigger avoidance behavior. Considering that, this paper analyzes the impact of offering an ask avoidance option on charitable giving. In a proposed utility framework, the avoidance option decreases the social pressure to donate. At the same time, it induces feelings of gratitude toward the fundraiser, which may lead to a reciprocal increase in donations. The results of a lab experiment designed to disentangle the two channels show no negative impact of the option to avoid repeated asking on donations. Instead, the full model indicates a positive impact of the reciprocity channel. This finding suggests that it might be beneficial for charities to introduce an ask avoidance option during high-frequency fundraising campaigns. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 38 KW - Charitable giving KW - Repeated request KW - Ask avoidance KW - Experiment Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-520991 SN - 2628-653X IS - 38 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Ziemann, Niklas T1 - You will receive your money next week! BT - Experimental evidence on the role of Future-Time Reference for intertemporal decision-making T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - Against the background of the increasingly discussed “Linguistic Saving Hypothesis” (Chen, 2013), I studied whether the targeted use of a present tense (close tense) and a future tense (distant tense) within the same language have an impact on intertemporal decision-making. In a monetarily incentivized laboratory experiment in Germany, I implemented two different treatments on intertemporal choices. The treatments differed in the tense in which I referred to future rewards. My results show that individuals prefer to a greater extent rewards which are associated with a present tense (close tense). This result is in line with my prediction and the first empirical support for the Linguistic Saving Hypothesis within one language. However, this result holds exclusively for males. Females seem to be unaffected by the linguistic manipulation. I discuss my findings in the context of “gender-as-culture” as well as their potential policy-implications. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 56 KW - Experiment KW - Intertemporal Choice KW - Language KW - Linguistic Saving Hypothesis Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-563983 SN - 2628-653X IS - 56 CY - Potsdam ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Bruttel, Lisa Verena A1 - Bulutay, Muhammed A1 - Cornand, Camille A1 - Heinemann, Frank A1 - Zylbersztejn, Adam T1 - Measuring strategic-uncertainty attitudes T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - Strategic uncertainty is the uncertainty that players face with respect to the purposeful behavior of other players in an interactive decision situation. Our paper develops a new method for measuring strategic-uncertainty attitudes and distinguishing them from risk and ambiguity attitudes. We vary the source of uncertainty (whether strategic or not) across conditions in a ceteris paribus manner. We elicit certainty equivalents of participating in two strategic 2x2 games (a stag-hunt and a market-entry game) as well as certainty equivalents of related lotteries that yield the same possible payoffs with exogenously given probabilities (risk) and lotteries with unknown probabilities (ambiguity). We provide a structural model of uncertainty attitudes that allows us to measure a preference for or an aversion against the source of uncertainty, as well as optimism or pessimism regarding the desired outcome. We document systematic attitudes towards strategic uncertainty that vary across contexts. Under strategic complementarity [substitutability], the majority of participants tend to be pessimistic [optimistic] regarding the desired outcome. However, preferences for the source of uncertainty are distributed around zero. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 54 KW - risk attitudes KW - ambiguity attitudes KW - strategic-uncertainty attitudes KW - stag-hunt game KW - market-entry game Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-562340 SN - 2628-653X IS - 54 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Späth, Maximilian A1 - Goller, Daniel T1 - Gender differences in investment reactions to irrelevant information T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - Economic agents often irrationally base their decision-making on irrelevant information. This research analyzes whether men and women react to futile information about past outcomes. For this purpose, we run a laboratory experiment (Study 1) and use field data (Study 2). In both studies, the behavior of men is consistent with falsely assumed negative autocorrelation, often referred to as gambler’s fallacy Women’s behavior aligns with falsely assumed positive autocorrelation, a notion of the hot hand fallacy. On the aggregate, the two fallacies cancel out. Even when individuals are, on average, rational, the biases in the decision-making of subgroups might cause inefficient outcomes. In a mediation analysis, we find that a) the agents stated perceived probabilities of future outcomes are not blurred by irrelevant information and b) about 40 % of the observed biases are driven by differences in the perceived attractiveness of available choices caused by the irrelevant information. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 67 KW - hot hand fallacy KW - gambler’s fallac KW - gender KW - irrelevant information Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-606351 SN - 2628-653X IS - 67 ER -