Inequalities between others do matter: evidence from multiplayer dictator games
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Inequalities between others do matter: evidence from multiplayer dictator games
zbMATH Open document ID: 1401.91019
author: David Macro
author: Jeroen Weesie
published in: Games
publication date: 2018-07-10T00:00:00Z
review text: Summary: Social motives are frequently used to explain deviations from selfishness in non-strategic settings such as the dictator game. Previous research has mainly focused on two-player games; the workings of social motives in multiplayer dictator games are less well understood. A core feature of multiplayer games is that players can consider inequalities between others, in addition to outcomes that have two-player analogues, such as social efficiency and the inequality between self and others. We expect that existing models of social motives can be improved if players are allowed to consider the inequality between others. Results from two laboratory experiments confirm this: motives for the inequality between others were found, and these motives could not be reduced to motives with dyadic analogues. Explorative analyses show that our findings are robust to a number of potential misspecifications: motives for the inequality between others were also found when utility included nonlinear evaluations of inequality, and when alternative types of self-other comparison mechanisms were modeled. Thus, to adequately capture social motives in multiplayer games, models should account for the complexities of the multiplayer setting. We speculate that our findings also hold for strategic games; but further research is needed to elucidate this.
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 91A06
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 91A90
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 62P25
zbMATH DE Number: 6901007
zbMATH Keywords: social motives
zbMATH Keywords: game theory
zbMATH Keywords: games
zbMATH Keywords: non-selfish preferences
zbMATH Keywords: welfare
zbMATH Keywords: inequality
zbMATH Keywords: multi-player games
zbMATH Keywords: dictator game
describes a project that uses: ORSEE
describes a project that uses: R
describes a project that uses: BayesDA
describes a project that uses: JAGS
describes a project that uses: mvtnorm
describes a project that uses: Z-Tree
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: g7020011
OpenAlex ID: W2336038673
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DOI: 10.3390/G7020011
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 6901007