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Keeping others in our mind or in our heart? Distribution games under cognitive load

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Abstract

It has recently been argued that giving is spontaneous while greed is calculated (Rand et al., in Nature 489:427–430, 2012). If greed is calculated we would expect that cognitive load, which is assumed to reduce the influence of cognitive processes, should affect greed. In this paper we study both charitable giving and the behavior of dictators under high and low cognitive load to test if greed is affected by the load. This is tested in three different dictator game experiments. In the dictator games we use both a give frame, where the dictators are given an amount that they may share with a partner, and a take frame, where dictators may take from an amount initially allocated to the partner. The results from all three experiments show that the behavioral effect in terms of allocated money of the induced load is small if at all existent. At the same time, follow-up questions indicate that the subjects’ decisions are more impulsive and less driven by their thoughts under cognitive load.

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Notes

  1. Several authors have used memorization of numbers to create cognitive load; see, e.g., Swann et al. (1990), Gilbert et al. (1995), Trope and Alfieri (1997), Shiv and Fedorikhin (1999), and Shiv and Nowlis (2004).

  2. Framing effects in dictator games are analyzed by Bardsley (2008) and Dreber et al. (2013), and in public good games by Andreoni (1995), Sonnemans et al. (1998), and Cubitt et al. (2011).

  3. One USD was equivalent to roughly SEK 7 at the time of the experiment.

  4. The questionnaire consisted of questions adopted from Shiv and Fedorikhin (1999) and Bosman and van Winden (2002).

  5. Five-point scale: (1) Very slightly or not at all, (2) a little, (3) moderately, (4) Quite a bit, (5) extremely.

  6. Five-point scale where 1 corresponds to “Does not coincide” and 5 corresponds to “Coincides very well”.

  7. In contrast, Rand et al. (2012) exclude subjects who did not reach a decision within the given time limit, with the argument that these subjects were not under cognitive load. In this paper, we argue that mistakes in the reported memory task can happen in two cases; when the subject has tried hard but does not succeed in reporting the correct numbers, and thus being under cognitive load, or when the subject disobeys the treatment and does not try to memorize the task, and thus is not under load. Since perfect recall has several possible interpretations concerning the effect of cognitive load in the setting of our experiment, we find it inappropriate to exclude some subjects from our analysis on that basis. Our results stay essentially the same when excluding dictators who did not remember the task correctly.

  8. 45 % of the subjects gave exactly 50 % of the endowment while 20 % of the subjects gave nothing. We have also tried to define equal as giving between 40 and 60 % of the endowment and egoist as giving less than 10 %, arriving at similar results.

  9. The number of correct digits was only recorded in Experiment 3, not in Experiment 1 and 2.

  10. We found a negative correlation between negative emotions and dictator allocations. The results of these regressions can be obtained from the authors on request.

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Acknowledgments

Financial support is gratefully acknowledged from the Norwegian Research Council (grant no. 164393), the Swedish Research Council (ref 421-2010-1420) and the Ethics programme at the University of Oslo. Hauge and Brekke are associated with CREE - the Oslo Centre for Research on Environmentally Friendly Energy - which is supported by the Research Council of Norway. Brekke also acknowledges the support of the Centre for Equality, Social Organization and Performance (ESOP). Svedsäter acknowledges his latest academic affiliations, London Business School and the Department of Psychology at the University of Gothenburg. We are grateful for valuable comments from the editor (Jacob Goeree) and in particular two anonymous referees. Thanks to Tore Ellingsen and Magnus Johannesson for good discussions on the design, to Erik Mohlin and Robert Östling for practical help in conducting experiment 1, to Kristine Korneliussen for practical help in conducting experiment 2, and to Isak Barbopoulos for practical help in conducting experiment 3.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research, Gaustadalléen 21, 0349, Oslo, Norway

    Karen Evelyn Hauge

  2. Department of Economics, University of Oslo, Postboks 1095 Blindern, 0317, Oslo, Norway

    Kjell Arne Brekke

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, Box 500, 405 30, Göteborg, Sweden

    Lars-Olof Johansson

  4. Departement of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, Box 640, 405 30, Göteborg, Sweden

    Olof Johansson-Stenman

  5. Glaxo Smith Kline, Stockley Park West, Blg 10 1-3 Iron Bridge Road, Uxbridge, UB11 1BT, UK

    Henrik Svedsäter

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  1. Karen Evelyn Hauge
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Correspondence to Karen Evelyn Hauge.

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Hauge, K.E., Brekke, K.A., Johansson, LO. et al. Keeping others in our mind or in our heart? Distribution games under cognitive load. Exp Econ 19, 562–576 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-015-9454-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-015-9454-z

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