Conformity of Social Preferences through Regular Interactions : Field Experiments in the Workplace

Social preferences shape behavioral principles in various aspects of society. Therefore, it is important to understand the determinants of social preferences to ensure the overall efficacy of any organizations. However, little is known about how repeated daily interactions foster social preferences. This study investigates whether social interactions in the workplace affect the conformity of social preferences among workers, and whether social coherence underlies the development of fairness norms in organizations. A two-week field experiment was conducted with agricultural manual laborers in the Philippines, where team compositions and payment contracts were randomized. Additionally, lab-in-the-field experiments were conducted to measure social preferences. The results show that workers who belonged to the same group more frequently during the experiment have similar social preferences compared to those who did not belong to the same group. Moreover, workers who worked together are more likely to comply with the fifty-fifty norm in the dictator game than those who did not. Finally, we find that group-based financial incentives improve social preference conformity and the emergence of the fairness norm. These findings suggest that social interactions and incentive schemes play an important role in influencing an organization's performance by shaping their social preferences and norms