It is common in organizational life to be simultaneously involved in multiple collective actions. These collective actions may be modeled using public good dilemmas. The developing social dilemma literature has two perspectives – the “divided loyalties” and “conditional cooperation”...

Even though human social behavior has received considerable scientific attention in the last decades, its cognitive underpinnings are still poorly understood. Applying a dual-process framework to the study of social preferences, we show in two studies that individuals with a more...

We compare the determinants of individual giving between two countries, Spain and the US, which differ in their redistribution policies and their beliefs over the causes of poverty. By varying the information about the determinants of income, we find that, although overall giving is similar in...

Using a gift exchange experiment, we show that the ability of reciprocity to overcome incentive problems inherent in principal-agent settings is greatly reduced when the agent’s effort is distorted by random shocks and transmitted imperfectly to the principal. Specifically, we find that gift...

Using a large (n=543) multi-ethnic sample of laboratory subjects, we systematically investigate the link between the digit ratio (the ratio of the length of the index finger to the length of the ring finger, also called 2D:4D ratio) and two measures of individual risk taking: (i) risk...

Experiments using economic games are becoming a major source for the study of human social behavior. These experiments are usually conducted with university students who voluntarily choose to participate. Across the natural and social sciences, there is some concern about how this...

Impersonal exchange is the hallmark of an advanced society. One key institution for impersonal exchange is money, which economic theory considers just a primitive arrangement for monitoring past conduct in society. If so, then a public record of past actions—or memory—supersedes the function...

Gender stereotypes and gender-discriminant behaviors have been shown to have strong and undesirable organizational, managerial, and economic effects. We examine the relationship between sexism and accounting practices, and the effect of contextual feedback using laboratory experiments. Sexist...

This experimental study compares sequential and simultaneous election contests. Consistent with the theory, we find evidence of the “New Hampshire effect” in the sequential contests, i.e., the winner of the first electoral battle wins the overall contest with much higher probability than the...

In the absence of enforceable contracts, many economic and personal interactions rely on trust and reciprocity. Research shows that although this reliance often works well, sometimes it breaks down. Simple rules mandating minimum standards on reciprocation prevent the most egregious trust...