Jürgen Fleiß

Reciprocity as an Individual Difference

There is accumulating evidence that decision makers are sensitive to the distribution of resources among themselves and others, beyond what is expected from the predictions of narrow self-interest. These social preferences are typically conceptualized as being static and existing independently of information about the other people influenced by a DM’s allocation choices. In this paper we consider the reactivity of a decision makers’s social preferences in response to information about the intentions or past behavior of the person to be affected by the decision maker’s allocation choices (i.e., how do social preferences change in relation to the other’s type). This paper offers a conceptual framework for characterizing the link between distributive preferences and reciprocity, and reports on experiments in which these two constructs are disentangled and the relation between the two is characterized.

Of Coordinators and Dictators: A Public Goods Experiment

We experimentally investigate whether human subjects are willing to give up individual freedom in return for the benefits of improved coordination. We conduct a modified iterated public goods game in which subjects in each period first decide which of two groups to join. One group employs a voluntary contribution mechanism, the other group an allocator contribution mechanism. The setup of the allocator mechanism differs between two treatments. In the coordinator treatment, the randomly selected allocator can set a uniform contribution for all group members, including herself. In the dictator treatment, the allocator can choose different contributions for herself and all other group members. We find that subjects willingly submit to authority in both treatments, even when competing with a voluntary contribution mechanism. The allocator groups achieve high contribution levels in both treatments.

A Household Is Not a Person Consistency of Pro-Environmental Behavior in Adult Couples and the Accuracy of Proxy-Reports

Studies on environmental behavior commonly assume single respondents to represent their entire household or employ proxy-reporting, where participants answer for other household members. It is contested whether these practices yield valid results. Therefore, we interviewed 84 couples, wherein both household members provided self- and proxy-reports for their partner. For use of electrical household appliances, consumption of hot water, space heating, everyday mobility, and environmental values, many variables fail to achieve criteria for validity. Consistency (agreement between self-reports of household members) is higher if behaviors are undertaken jointly or negotiated between partners. Accuracy (agreement of proxy-reports with corresponding self-reports) is higher for routine behaviors and for behaviors easily observable by the partner. Overall, indices perform better than items on single behaviors. We caution against employing individual responses in place of the entire household. Interventions for energy conservation should approach the specific person undertaking the target behavior.

Social Values and Cooperation. Results from an Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma Experiment.

The following article deals with the question of cooperation in dilemma situations. We ran an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma experiment and measured the players social value orientation using the Ring Measure of Social Value. We then analyze the players behavior in the Prisoner’s Dilemma in relation to their social value orientation to test the hypotheses that prosocial players are more likely to cooperate. We find evidence that this is indeed the case. We do not find evidence that if two prosocial players interact with each other they achieve higher cooperation rates than two proself players or one prosocial and one proself player.

Merit norms in the ultimatum game: an experimental study of the effect of merit on individual behavior and aggregate outcomes

The paper reports the results of an ultimatum game experiment designed to test the effects of meritocratic norms on individual behavior and aggregate outcomes. In one treatment the roles of proposer and responder were assigned randomly. In the other treatment the roles were earned in a general knowledge quiz. The results show that proposers offer significantly less when they have earned their roles and responders have a significantly lower acceptance threshold. Rejection rates are lower for offers lower than the equal split when positions are allocated based on merit: Proposers earn significantly more in this setting. Responders suffer some loss in this treatment. This leads to an increase in overall inequality of payoffs measured by the Gini index when positions are allocated based on merit.

Collaborative decision systems in economics and in complex societal and environmental applications

The EURO Mini-Conference on “Collaborative Decision Systems in Economics and in Complex Societal and Environmental Applications” took place from October 17 through 19, 2013 in Graz, Austria (https://eurominiconferencegraz2013.wordpress. com/). It was organized by the EUROWorking Groups of DSS, E-CUBE, MCSP and ORAFM together with the main organizers Dr. Fatima C.C. Dargam, Prof. Dr. Stefan Pickl and Prof. Dr. Ulrike Leopold–Wildburger. Prof. Leopold–Wildburger is the head of the Institute of Statistics and Operations Research at the University of Graz, which managed the local organization.1 The conference’s purpose was to bring together researchers in the areas of Decision Support Systems, Operations Research, Methodology of Societal Complexity, Experimental Economics, and their respective areas of applications. These researchers shared and discussed their own and their respective disciplines’ different approaches during the conference. The conference focused on the problem of decision-making and its relation to societal, economic, and environmental contexts. The conference

Save the Planet for Humans' Sake: A Study on Social and Environmental Value Orientations

Evidence for the relationship between social and environmental concerns is mixed. However, these constructs have commonly been measured by diverse methods that do not readily facilitate a direct comparison of results. We employ a consistent incentivized method to assess subjects’ social value orientations (SVO) and also their motivations for the environment and humanitarian aid. Subjects made resource allocation choices with real consequences while the experimental design ensured comparability of subjects’ preferences (i.e., their willingness to make tradeoffs for different environmental and social causes). We found that social and environmental value orientations are intertwined, and the results clearly show that people are generally willing to pay more for the benefit of people in need, compared to abstract environmental causes. We conclude that interventions to nudge people towards environmentally-friendly behavior may have a greater impact if the human suffering as resulting from global warming is made salient.