Social Preferences in the Lab: A Comparison of Students and a Representative Population

20 Pages Posted: 18 Jul 2011

See all articles by Alexander W. Cappelen

Alexander W. Cappelen

Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) - Department of Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Knut Nygaard

Oslo Business School at Oslo Metropolitan University

Erik Sorensen

Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) - Department of Economics

Bertil Tungodden

Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) - Department of Economics

Date Written: July 18, 2011

Abstract

Can lab experiments on student populations serve to identify the motivational forces present in society at large? We address this question by conducting, to our knowledge, the first study of social preferences that brings a nationally representative population into the lab, and we compare their behavior to the behavior of different student populations. Our study shows that students may not be informative of the role of social preferences in the broader population. We find that the representative participants differ fundamentally from students both in their level of selfishness and in the relative importance assigned to different moral motives. It is also interesting to note that while we do not find any substantial gender differences among the students, males and females in the representative group differ fundamentally in their moral motivation.

Keywords: social preferences, representative population, dictator game, trust game

JEL Classification: C910

Suggested Citation

Cappelen, Alexander W. and Nygaard, Knut and Sorensen, Erik and Tungodden, Bertil, Social Preferences in the Lab: A Comparison of Students and a Representative Population (July 18, 2011). CESifo Working Paper Series No. 3511, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1888185 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1888185

Alexander W. Cappelen

Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) - Department of Economics ( email )

Helleveien 30
N-5035 Bergen
Norway

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

Knut Nygaard

Oslo Business School at Oslo Metropolitan University ( email )

Pilestredet 35
Oslo, 0167
Norway

Erik Sorensen

Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) - Department of Economics ( email )

Helleveien 30
Bergen, NO-5045
Norway

Bertil Tungodden (Contact Author)

Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) - Department of Economics ( email )

Helleveien 30
N-5035 Bergen
Norway

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