Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/257500 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Citation: 
[Journal:] Games [ISSN:] 2073-4336 [Volume:] 12 [Issue:] 1 [Article No.:] 18 [Publisher:] MDPI [Place:] Basel [Year:] 2021 [Pages:] 1-14
Publisher: 
MDPI, Basel
Abstract: 
Experimental social scientists working at research-intensive institutions deal inevitably with subjects who have most likely participated in previous experiments. It is an important methodological question to know whether participants that have acquired a high level of lab-sophistication show altered pro-social behavioural patterns. In this paper, we focus both on the potential effect of the subjects' lab-sophistication, and on the role of the knowledge about the level of lab-sophistication of the other participants. Our main findings show that while lab-sophistication per se does not significantly affect pro-social behaviour, for sophisticated subjects the knowledge about the counterpart's level of (un)sophistication may systematically alter their choices. This result should induce caution among experimenters about whether, in their settings, information about lab-sophistication can be inferred by the participants, due to the characteristics of the recruitment mechanisms, the management of the experimental sessions or to other contextual clues.
Subjects: 
cooperation
experimental methodology
external validity
lab-sophistication
pro-social behaviour
JEL: 
D03
D83
C91
C92
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article
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