Commitment; Communication; Persuasion; Voluntary contribution mechanism; Applied Psychology; Economics and Econometrics; Social Sciences (all); General Social Sciences
Abstract :
[en] Through a series of experiments, this paper tests the relative efficiency of persuasion and commitment schemes to increase and sustain contribution levels in a Voluntary Contribution Game. The design allows us to compare a baseline consisting of a repeated public good game to four treatments of the same game in which we successively introduce a persuasion message, commitment devices, and communication between subjects. Our results suggest that these non-monetary procedures significantly increase cooperation and reduce the decay of contributions across periods.
Disciplines :
Economic systems & public economics
Author, co-author :
Bazart, Cécile; CEE-M, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, INRAE, Montpellier SupAgro, France
Lefebvre, Mathieu ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Ecole de Gestion de l'Université de Liège ; Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France
Rosaz, Julie; CEREN EA 7477, Burgundy School of Business, Universit Bourgogne Franche-Comté, France
Language :
English
Title :
Promoting socially desirable behaviors through persuasion and commitment: Experimental evidence
The authors are thankful to the editor and two anonymous referees for their fruitful remarks and comments. They are grateful to Kene Boun-My for programming the experiment. They would also like to thank participants at the Anthropo-lab seminar (Lille), the LISER-Lab inaugural workshop and the 8th international Conference of the French Association of Experimental Economics. The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support by the project IDEX Attractivité funded through the University of Strasbourg IDEX Unistra. This work was also supported by the French National Research Agency Grant ANR-17-EURE-0020, and by the Excellence Initiative of Aix-Marseille University - A*MIDEX.”
Ajzen, I., The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 50 (1991), 179–211.
Alm, J., Jacobson, S., Using laboratory experiments in public economics. National Tax Journal 60:1 (2007), 129–152.
Altmann, S., Falk, A., The impact of cooperation defaults on voluntary contributions to public goods. 2009, mimeo, IZA.
Balliet, D., Communication and cooperation in social dilemmas: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Conflict Resolution 54:1 (2010), 39–57.
Bhanot, S., Cheap promises: Evidence from loan repayment pledges in an online experiment. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 140 (2017), 246–266.
Bochet, O., Page, T., Putterman, L., Communication and punishment in voluntary contribution experiments. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 60:1 (2006), 11–26.
Bochet, O., Putterman, L., Not just babble: Opening the black box of communication in a voluntary contribution experiment. European Economic Review 53:3 (2009), 309–326.
Brandts, J., Charness, G., Do labour market conditions affect gift exchange? Some experimental evidence. Economic Journal 114:497 (2004), 684–708.
Bromberg, M., Trognon, A., Psychologie sociale. 2006, PUF, Paris.
Burger, J.M., The foot-in-the-door compliance procedure: A multiple-process analysis and review. Personality and Social Psychology Review 3:4 (1999), 303–325.
Charness, G., Du, N., Yang, C.-L., Yao, L., Promises in contract design. European Economic Review 64 (2013), 194–208.
Charness, G., Dufwenberg, M., Promises and partnership. Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society 74:6 (2006), 1579–1601.
Chaudhuri, A., Sustaining cooperation in laboratory public goods experiments: A selective survey of the literature. Experimental Economics 14:1 (2011), 47–83.
Chaudhuri, A., Graziano, S., Maitra, P., Social learning and norms in a public goods experiment with inter-generational advice-super-1. Review of Economic Studies 73:2 (2006), 357–380.
Chaudhuri, A., Paichayontvijit, T., On the long-run efficacy of punishments and recommendations in a laboratory public goods game. Scientific Reports 7:12286 (2017), 1–8.
Croson, R., Marks, M., The effect of recommended contributions in the voluntary provision of public goods. Economic Inquiry 39:2 (2001), 238–249.
Dal Bo, E., Dal Bo, P., “Do the right thing”: The effects of moral suasion on cooperation. Journal of Public Economics 117:C (2015), 28–38.
Dale, D., Morgan, J., Silence is golden.suggested donations in voluntary contribution games. 2010, mimeo, UC Berkeley.
Dawes, R., M, J., McTavish, J., Shaklee, H., Behavior, communication, and assumptions about other people's behavior in a commons dilemma situation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 35:1 (1977), 1–11.
De Quidt, J., Vesterlund, L., Wilson, A., Experimenter demand effects. Handbook of research methods and applications in experimental economic, 2019, Elgar, 384–400.
Denant-Boemont, L., Masclet, D., Noussair, C., Announcement, observation and honesty in the voluntary contributions game. Pacific Economic Review 16:2 (2011), 207–228.
Di Bartolomeo, G., Dufwenberg, M., Papa, S., Passarelli, F., Promises, expectations and causation. Sapienza University of Rome Working Paper, 2017, University of Rome.
Dialdini, R., Cacioppo, J., Basset, R., Miller, J., Low-ball procedure for producing compliance: Commitment, then cost. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36:5 (1978), 463–476.
Drouvelis, M., Social preferences: An introduction to behavioural economics and experimental research. 2021, Agenda Publishing, Newcastle.
Drouvelis, M., Metcalfe, R., Powdthavee, N., Can priming cooperation increase public good contributions?. Theory and Decision 79:3 (2015), 479–492.
Dugar, S., Non-monetary incentives and opportunistic behavior: Evidence form a laboratory public good game. Economic Inquiry 51:2 (2013), 1374–1388.
Ellingsen, T., Johannesson, M., Promises, threats and fairness. Economic Journal 114:495 (2004), 397–420.
Fischbacher, U., Gachter, S., Fehr, E., Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from a public goods experiment. Economics Letters 71:3 (2001), 397–404.
Frey, B., Jegen, R., Motivation crowding theory. Journal of Economic Surveys 15:5 (2001), 589–611.
Girandola, F., Psychologie de la persuasion et de lengagement. 2003, PUFC.
Girandola, F., Roussiau, N., L'engagement comme source de modifications long terme. Les Cahiers Internationaux de Psychologie Sociale 57 (2003), 83–101.
Gneezy, U., Meier, S., Rey-Biel, P., When and why incentives (don't) work to modify behavior. Journal of Economic Perspectives 25:4 (2011), 191–210.
Greiner, B., Subject pool recruitment procedures: Organizing experiments with ORSEE. Journal of the Economic Science Association 1:1 (2015), 114–125.
Hergueux, J., Jacquemet, N., Luchini, S., Shogren, J.F., Leveraging the honor code: Public goods contributions under oath. Environmental & Resource Economics 81:3 (2022), 591–616.
Isaac, R.M., Walker, J.M., Communication and free-riding behavior: The voluntary contribution mechanism. Economic Inquiry 26:4 (1988), 585–608.
Jacquemet, N., Joule, R.-V., Luchini, S., Shogren, J.F., Preference elicitation under oath. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 65:1 (2013), 110–132.
Jacquemet, N., Luchini, S., Rosaz, J., Shogren, J.F., Truth telling under oath. Management Science, 2018.
Joule, R., Psychologie et dȨveloppement durable. Sciences de la Société(50–51), 2000, 280–295.
Joule, R., Beauvois, J., La soumission librement consentie. 1998, PUF, Paris.
Joule, R., Bernard, F., Lagane, J., Girandola, F., Promote cleanness of beaches: Communication and committing communication. Xth European congress of psychology - Prague - 3–6 juillet, 2007.
Joule, R., Girandola, F., Bernard, F., How can people be induced to willingly change their behavior? The path from persuasive communication to binding communication. Social and Personality Psychology Compass(1), 2007, 493–505.
Joule, R.V., La théorie de l'engagement. Beauvois, J.L., Monteil, J.M., (eds.) La psychologie sociale. Des compétences pour l'application, vol. 5, 2001, Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, Grenoble, 273–310.
Karakostas, A., Zizzo, D.J., Compliance and the power of authority. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 124:C (2016), 67–80.
Kerr, N., Kaufman-Gilliland, C., Communication, commitment, and cooperation in social dilemma. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 66:3 (1994), 513–529.
Kettle, K., Haubl, G., The signature effect: Signing influences consumption-related behavior by priming self-identity. Journal of Marketing Research 45:6 (2008), 634–644.
Kiesler, C., The psychology of commitment. 1971, Academic press, New-york.
Koessler, A.-K., Torgler, B., Feld, L.P., Frey, B.S., Commitment to pay taxes: Results from field and laboratory experiments. European Economic Review 115:C (2019), 78–98.
Kosfeld, M., Falk, A., The hidden costs of control. American Economic Review 96:5 (2006), 1611–1630.
Ledyard, J., Public goods: A survey of experimental research. Kagel, J.H., Roth, A.E., (eds.) Handbook of experimental economics, 1995, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 111–194.
Lefebvre, M., Stenger, A., Short- & long-term effects of monetary and non-monetary incentives to cooperate in public good games: An experiment. PLOS ONE 15:1 (2020), 1–17.
Liu, J., Riyanto, Y., The limit to behavioral inertia and the power of default in voluntary contribution games. Social Choice and Welfare 48:4 (2017), 815–835.
Masclet, D., Noussair, C., Tucker, S., Villeval, M.-C., Monetary and nonmonetary punishment in the voluntary contributions mechanism. American Economic Review 93:1 (2003), 366–380.
Mazar, N., Amir, O., Ariely, D., The dishonesty of honest people: A theory of self-concept maintenance. Journal of Consumer Research 38:3 (2008), 474–489.
Oprea, R., Charness, G., Friedman, D., Continuous time and communication in a public-goods experiment. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 108:C (2014), 212–223.
Palfrey, T., Rosenthal, H., Roy, N., How cheap talk enhances efficiency in threshold public goods games. Games and Economic Behavior 101:C (2017), 234–259.
Palfrey, T.R., Rosenthal, H., Testing for effects of cheap talk in a public goods game with private information. Games and Economic Behavior 3:2 (1991), 183–220.
Randall, D., Wolff, J., The time interval in the intention-behaviour relationship: Meta-analysis. British Journal of Social Psychology 33:4 (1994), 405–418.
Rege, M., Telle, K., The impact of social approval and framing on cooperation in public good situations. Journal of Public Economics 88:7–8 (2004), 1625–1684.
Sefton, M., Shupp, R., Walker, J.M., The effect of rewards and sanctions in provision of public goods. Economic Inquiry 45:4 (2007), 671–690.
Simons, H.W., Persuasion: Understanding, practice, and analysis. Addison-Wesley, 1976.
Zizzo, D., Experimenter demand effects in economic experiments. Experimental Economics 13:1 (2010), 75–98.
