Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/100152 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
CeDEx Discussion Paper Series No. 2012-14
Publisher: 
The University of Nottingham, Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics (CeDEx), Nottingham
Abstract: 
We measure the other-regarding behavior in samples from three related populations in the upper Midwest of the United States: college students, non-student adults from the community surrounding the college, and adult trainee truckers in a residential training program. The use of typical experimental economics recruitment procedures made the first two groups substantially self-selected. Because the context reduced the opportunity cost of participating dramatically, 91% of the adult trainees solicited participated, leaving little scope for self-selection in this sample. We find no differences in the elicited other-regarding preferences between the selfselected adults and the adult trainees, suggesting that selection is unlikely to bias inferences about the prevalence of other-regarding preferences among non-student adult subjects. Our data also reject the more specific hypothesis that approval-seeking subjects are the ones most likely to select into experiments. Finally, we observe a large difference between self-selected college students and self-selected adults: the students appear considerably less pro-social.
Subjects: 
methodology
selection bias
laboratory experiment
field experiment
otherregarding behavior
social preferences
prisoner's dilemma
truckload
trucker
JEL: 
C90
D03
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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