Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1883598

kll B I Experimental Economics, 3:107-120 (2000) "W'~" (g) 2000 Economic Science Association

Volunteers and Pseudo-Volunteers: The Effect of Recruitment Method in Dictator Experiments

CATHERINE C. ECKEL Department of Economics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA email: eckelc@vt.edu

PHILIP J. GROSSMAN Department of Economics, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN56301-4498, USA email: pgrossman@stcloudstate.edu

Received May 19, 1999," Revised March 29. 2000

A b s t r a c t

We report the results of experiments that test for behavioral differences between volunteer subjects recruited in the usual way and pseudo-volunteer subjects in experiments conducted during class time. In a series of dictator games, we find that psuedo-volunteers are more generous on average than their volunteer counterparts, and that non-monetary factors such as religious or altruistic preferences have a greater effect on the giving behavior of pseudo-volunteers.

Keywords: experimental methodology, dictator game, charitable giving

JEL Classification:

Research by experimental economists and experimentalists from the other social and be- havioral sciences has much in common, including the frequent use of similar games and methodologies. There are, however, methodological aspects in which the work o f economists differs from that of other social scientists.

Given the nature of their discipline, economists hold strongly to the belief that a game's incentives must be salient, and stress the importance of monetary compensation based on the subject's performance. For economists, deception is to be avoided if at all possible. Finally, subjects in economic experiments should be volunteers, choosing whether to participate without coercion. By contrast, experiments conducted by other social scientists may involve no monetary compensation, deception, and participation required as part of a student's class.

Only the first of these methodological differences has been studied in any depth. In a recent survey, Camerer and Hogarth (1999) categorize 74 studies that compare behavior with and without monetary incentives. They conclude that incentives matter for tasks where performance responds to effort and effort responds to incentives. For example, incentives appear to have little or no effect in many tasks, where intrinsic motivation appears to be sufficient to lead to good performance, or where the task is so hard that increased effort

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1883598

108 ECKEL AND GROSSMAN

won,t help. In mundane activities such as memory recall or clerical tasks where intrinsic motivation tends to wane, incentives can increase diligence and performance. Incentives can hurt performance in situations where incentives cause too much effort or cause subjects to overreact to feedback. In a final category, incentives change performance, but there is no performance standard. In experiments where subjects can display socially-desirable characteristics, such as risk-seeking behavior or altruism, incentives raise the price of this display, and lower its level. The experiment we report falls into the last category.

Camerer and Hogarth further propose a capital/labor theory of decision making in ex- periments, and argue that things like the intelligence, experience, or intrinsic motivation of the subject act as capital, which substitutes for incentives in improving performance. Their framework suggests that recruitment method might have an impact on performance. Volun- teers are recruited with an emphasis on the financial rewards of participation, and therefore their motivation is more likely to be based on the financial incentives of the experiment than for non-volunteers. Our results support this conjecture.

In this paper, we examine the effect of recruitment method on behavior in a dictator game experiment. One set of sessions was conducted with volunteers, recruited in the usual way from business, psychology, and sociology classrooms. These subjects were recruited to turn up at a particular time and place, and were promised a chance to earn a significant amount of money by participating. The second set of sessions used "pseudo-volunteers", recruited from a class in which the experiment was to be conducted immediately, during the class period. Participation was still voluntary; students were told they could choose not to participate and leave without penalty. Significant differences in the behavior of the two groups are reported.

I. Experimental procedure and design I

The experiment

All subjects participate in a dictator game experiment with a charity as the recipient, similar to that used in Eckel and Grossman (1996). The design is modified along the lines of those adopted by Andreoni and Miller (1998) and Andreoni and Vesterlund (forthcoming) to include different endowments and "exchange rates" between a subject's own payoff and the charity. In addition, we test whether the form of a subsidy (a rebate or match) affects giving. A subject makes a series of allocation decisions dividing endowments between himself and his chosen charity, where decisions vary according to: 1) the level of the endowment, 2) the net price of giving $1 to the charity, and 3) whether giving is subsidized in the form of a rebate, a match, or not at all. 2 The experiment lasted about one hour, and subjects earned $3.64 on average for participating.

Subject recruiting

A total of 181 subjects were recruited at the University of Texas at Arlington. Eighty-six subjects participated in four sessions conducted during class time. 3 Subjects were informed that participation was voluntary and that they would be paid their earnings in cash at the end

VOLUNTEERS AND PSEUDO-VOLUNTEERS 109

of the class period. Anyone who did not wish to participate was excused. We refer to these subjects as "pseudo volunteers". The remaining 95 subjects were recruited to appear at a specified room at a specified time and date through announcements made in undergraduate and graduate courses in economics, finance, management, psychology, and sociology. They were told they had a chance to earn a significant amount of money by participation. Two sessions were conducted using this recruiting method.

Procedure

The experimenter first selects a monitor from among the subjects to assist and to verify the experimental procedure, and then distributes a packet containing instructions and forms. (See Appendix A for documents.) Instructions are read aloud, and include a description of the choice of charity to receive any contributions, the dictator games, and the method of payment. A double-anonymous procedure is implemented so that decisions are anonymous both to other subjects and to the experimenter.

A subject selects a single charity, from a list often, to receive any contributions made. She then completes each of twelve allocation decision problems, determining how many of the tokens in her endowment to hold and how many to pass to her charity partner. 4 One of these decisions is chosen for payment by the roll of a 12-sided die. Subjects complete the charity recognition form if they wish to receive acknowledgment for any contribution they have made; filling out this form also reveals the subject's decision to the experimenter. After all decisions are made, subjects then complete a set of survey questions: the Self- Report Altruism Scale (Rushton et al., 1981), a survey of socioeconomic characteristics, and a five-item manipulation check questionnaire (see Appendix B). Subjects' decisions are collected, their earnings are computed anonymously and sealed in separate envelopes marked with the subject's specific code number, and are picked up by the subjects. Finally, the experimenter writes a check to each of the charities and mails them, and the monitor signs a form verifying that the money was sent.

II. Results

In total, 168 subjects made useable decisions in the two conditions; 81 in the classroom condition and 87 in the recruited condition. There were four monitors for the classroom sessions and two monitors for the recruited sessions. An additional seven subjects were dropped, six from the recruited condition and one from the classroom condition. 5 Table 1 summarizes subject characteristics. The demographic differences between the two groups are relatively minor. One difference is the percentage of White/Caucasian subjects (59.3 percent of the pseudo-volunteer subjects were White/Caucasian versus only 37.9 percent of the volunteer subjects). A second difference is in the subjects' desire for recognition. Volunteer subjects are significantly more likely to seek recognition than pseudo-volunteer subjects (p-value = 0.05).

We expect the marginal benefit of an additional dollar to be higher for the volunteer subjects than the pseudo-volunteer subjects. One indication of this is the difference in the percentage of subjects who passed everything to the charity regardless of the endowment,

110

Table 1. Subject characteristics

ECKEL AND GROSSMAN

Pseudo-volunteer Volunteer All sessions (%) sessions (%) sessions (%)

(N = 168) (N = 81) (N = 87)

Age (Std. Dev.) 23.33 (6.82) 23.85 (6.81) 22.85 (6.83)

Male 95 (56.5%) 49 (60.5%) 46 (52.9%)

Married 27 (16.1%) 15 (18.5%) 12 (13.8%)

Children a 18 (10.9%) 10 (12.5%) 8 (9.4%)

Attend religious services regularly 65 (38.7%) 30 (37.0%) 35 (40.2%)

Race

Asian-American/Oriental 35 (20.8%) 8 (9.9%) 27 (31.0%)

Black/African American 23 (13.7%) 9 (11.1%) 14 (16.1%)

White/Caucasian 81 (48.2%) 48 (59.3%) 33 (37.9%)

Hispanic-Black/Spanish-speaking Black 1 (0.6%) I (1.2%) 0 (0.0%)

Hispanic-White/Spanish-speaking White 15 (8.9%) 9 (11.1%) 6 (6.9%)

Other 13 (7.7%) 6 (7.4%) 7 (8.0%)

Class

Freshman 16 (9.5%) 9 ( 11.1 ) 7 (8.0%)

Sophomore 56 (33.3%) 26 (32.1%) 30 (34.5%)

Junior 38 (22.6%) 13 (16.0%) 25 (28.7%)

Senior 54 (32.1%) 31 (38.3%) 23 (26.4%)

Graduate 4 (2.4%) 2 (2.5%) 2 (2.2%)

Major

Economies/Business 101 (60.1%) 52 (64.2%) 49 (56.3%)

Other 67 (39.9%) 29 (35.8%) 38 (43.7%)

Economics classes taken

Zero 33 (19.6%) 7 (8.6%) 26 (29.9%)

One or two 102 (60.7%) 57 (70.3%) 45 (51.7%)

More than two 33 (19.6%) 17 (21.0%) 16 (18.4%)

Altruism score (Std. Dev.) 39.45 (12.21) 38.56 (13.62) 40.28 (11.58)

Recognition 36 (21.4%) 13 (16.0%) 23 (26.4%)

aOne male subject in the pseudo-volunteer sessions and two male subjects in the volunteer sessions did not complete this question.

price, or subsidy form. In the pseudo-volunteer sessions, 19.7 percent ( 16/81) of the subjects contributed everything to their charities for all 12 decisions, while only 1 percent (1/87) of the volunteer subjects contributed everything. At the same time, none of the volunteer subjects and only two (2.5 percent) of the pseudo-volunteer subjects passed nothing to the charity. Analyzing all decisions by all participants, in the pseudo-volunteer sessions, 28.7 percent (289/972) of decisions were to give everything to the charity, while in the volunteer sessions, only 5.2 percent (54/1044) of decisions were to give everything.

VOLUNTEERS AND PSEUDO-VOLUNTEERS

Table 2. Pseudo-volunteer vs. volunteer sessions: dollar contribution to charities

111

Contribution to charities (Variance)

Means test Test of differences in Epps-Singleton Endowment/(Rebate/ Pseudo-volunteer Volunteer Z statistic variances F-statistic b X 2 statistic Matching)/Price (N = 81) (N --.= 87) (p-value) a (p-value) (p-value) e

40/Matching/S0.50 4.74 (6.75) 3.49 (5.56) 3.26 (0.001) 1.21 (0.19) 10.51 (0.03)

40/Rebate/S0.50 2.45 (1.64) 2.00 (0.98) 2.54 (0.005) 1.71 (0.008) 21.70 (0.0002)

40/Matching/S0.80 3.16 (2.90) 2.15 (2.09) 4.13 (0.001) 1.39 (0.07) 20.87 (0.0003)

40/Rebate/S0.80 2.39 (2.04) 1.68 (1.19) 3.60 (0.001) 1.71 (0.007) 22.15 (0.0002)

60/Matching/S0.75 4.37 (8.07) 3.20 (4.10) 3.05 (0.001) 1.97 (0.001) 24.19 (0.0001)

60/Rebate/S0.75 3.59 (4.36) 2.54 (1.84) 3.83 (0.001) 2.37 (0.0001) 41.96 (0.0000)

60/-/$1.00 3.41 (4.46) 2.30 (2.73) 3.78 (0.001) 1.63 (0.01) 17.65 (0.001)

75/Matching/S0.50 9.06 (25.02) 6.46 (16.85) 3.67 (0.001) 1.48 (0.04) 17.98 (0.001)

75/Rebate/S0.50 4.56 (5.67) 3.33 (4.09) 3.60 (0.001) 1.39 (0.07) 22.53 (0.0002)

75/Matching/S0.75 5.70 (12.05) 3.78 (5.71) 4.15 (0.001) 2.11 (0.0004) 27.28 (0.0000)

75/Rebate/S0.75 4.70 (5.84) 3.12 (3.79) 4.65 (0.001) 1.54 (0.02) 38.64 (0.0000)

100/-451.00 5.79 (12.24) 4.02 (7.24) 3.66 (0.001) 1.69 (0.009) 18.94 (0.0008)

aCol. 2 v. Col. 3; one-tailed test. bCol. 2 v. Col. 3; dfl = 80; df2 = 86. CCol. 2 v. Col. 3.

Table 2 provides a comparison of dollar contributions to the charities by endowment, price o f giving, and type of subsidy. The pseudo-volunteer subjects are significantly more generous in their contributions to the charities in all treatments. In every case, the pseudo- volunteer subjects donated between 22 and 50 percent more tokens than did the volunteer subjects. Means are significantly different (p-values < 0.006) in every case. In addition to different mean contributions, the variances of contributions differ considerably between the two groups, with variances in pseudo-volunteer contributions as much as 2.4 times as large as for the volunteer contributions. For all but two of the endowment/price/subsidy combi- nations, the variance of the pseudo-volunteer contributions is significantly greater (p-value < 0.05) than the variance for the volunteer contributions. This difference is consistent with previous studies that compare decisions with and without monetary incentives: incentives frequently reduce the variance of decisions (Camerer and Hogarth). This provides some indirect evidence that volunteer subjects are more motivated by incentives.

We next consider an Epps-Singleton test o f the hypothesis that there is no difference in the overall distribution of contributions made by pseudo-volunteer and volunteer subjects for each case (see Epps and Singleton, 1986). The Epps-Singleton test statistic, which is distributed X 2 (4), is reported in column 6. For every endowment/price/subsidy combination, we reject the null hypothesis of no difference in the distributions of contributions for the two conditions. The test statistics are significant in every case (p-value < 0.03).

One advantage of using monetary payments is that it tends to reduce the influence of non- monetary factors on the outcome of the decision-making experiment. We observe several characteristics of subjects that reflect their preferences: their sex (male/female), religious

1 12 ECKEL AND GROSSMAN

Table 3. Regression results: Tobit maximum likelihood (Dependent variable = In(dollars contributed to the charity + $0.10)).

Log of the likelihood Function Endowment/(Rebate/ Matching)/Priee Restricted model Unrestricted model

Likelihood ratio test statistic (restricted vs. unrestricted)

g 2 (3) (p-value)

40/Matching/S0.50 -205.5 - 185.5 39.95 (<0.001)

40/Rebate/S0.50 -166.2 -147.2 37.88 (<0.001)

40/Matching/S0.80 -273.8 -263.7 20.17 (<0.001)

40/Rebate/S0.80 -281.8 -272.8 18.12 (<0.00 I)

60/Matching/S0.75 -241.9 -216.8 50.27 (<0.001)

60/Rebate/S0.75 -212.1 -207.9 8.30 (<0.05)

60/-/$1.00 -246.9 -212.5 68.85 (<0.001)

75/Matching/S0.50 -221.4 -202.8 37.26 (<0.001)

75/Rebate/S0.50 -237.0 -217.2 39.74 (<0.001)

75/Matching/0.75 - 166.1 - 151.8 28.69 (<0.00 l )

75/-/P, ebate/$0.75 -254.3 -246.2 16.22 (<0.001)

100/-/$1.00 -261.1 -238.2 45.83 (<0.001)

preference, and their score on the altruism scale. I f volunteer subjects are more motivated by financial incentives, then these factors should have a smaller effect on their decisions. In Table 3, we report the results from estimations that allow us to test our hypothesis by adjusting for observable differences in the subject pool. Because each subject makes many decisions, we do not pool the data across decisions, but rather estimate the model for each of the 12 allocation decisions separately. We estimate the following commonly-applied log-linear specification: 6

ln(CONTRIBUTION)i = aIVOLUNTEER~ + aECLASSi 4- a3Xi (1)

where i = 1 . . . . . 135 (an index of subjects) and:

CONTRIBUTION = dollar value of contribution received by the charity 4- $0.10; 7

VOLUNTEER = dummy variable ( = 1 for subjects in volunteer sessions)

CLASS = dummy variable ( = 1 for subjects in classroom sessions)

X is a vector of individual characteristics, including:

SEX = sex of the subject (1 = male);

RELIGIOUS = does subject regularly attend religious services (1 = yes); and

ALTRUISM SCORE = score on a self-report altruism survey.

For each decision we estimate two models: one restricts the vector of coefficients a3 above to be the same across treatments; the other permits these coefficients to differ for volunteers and non-volunteers. Table 3 reports only the likelihood ratio tests for each decision. Complete estimates are available from the authors on request.

VOLUNTEERS AND PSEUDO-VOLUNTEERS 113

We estimate (1) using tobit maximum likelihood to account for the censoring of the subjects' choices from both below and above (i.e. ln(0.1) < In(CONTRIBUTION) < In(maximum possible CONTRIBUTION + 0.1). In all cases we reject equality of the co- efficients (p < 0.05): the coefficients for volunteer sessions are typically lower than for pseudo-volunteer sessions, indicating that the characteristics of pseudo-volunteers have more influence on their decisions than for volunteers. 8 The general pattern that we observe is that, for the pseudo-volunteer subjects, other non-monetary factors matter more than for the true volunteers.

IlL Conclusion

We report the results of experiments designed to shed some light on a methodological question significant to experimentalists. In an experimental study consisting of a series of dictator games with a charitable organization as a recipient, volunteer subjects behave somewhat differently from more "captive" subjects. When subjects are recruited to an independent location and paid for their appearance, they behave in a less extreme manner than subjects who participate as part of an entire class recruited for an experiment conducted during the class period. There are several possible reasons for this result, and more research is needed to untangle them.

Despite our attempts to construct a double-anonymous procedure, subjects in the pseudo- volunteer setting may have been more sensitive to experimenter demand, so that their behav- ior was motivated by something other than the incentive structure built into the experimental design. One fact consistent with this conclusion is that more extreme behavior was observed in the pseudo-volunteer sessions. This raises the question: are pseudo-volunteer subjects attempting to "figure out" the experiment and do what the experimenter wants? The more au- thoritative environment of the pseudo-volunteer sessions may increase the potential impact of experimenter demand, since students are accustomed to acting to please their professors in those settings.

A second possibility is that the recruitment procedure selects different students. Students who respond to recruiting where the expectation of monetary earnings is emphasized may be more sensitive to financial incentives, or the recruited students may simply have higher intrinsic motivation to perform the experimental task well. The more extreme behavior in the pseudo-volunteer settings suggests that the experiment's monetary incentives are evaluated differently by the two groups, and less consistently by the pseudo-volunteer subjects. The lower variance of decisions by true volunteers is similar to that induced by higher stakes, which provides some evidence of higher motivation on the part of these subjects.

The results suggest that conducting experiments in a classroom setting may alter results, and that caution should be used in selecting an appropriate recruitment method. To en- sure that monetary incentives motivate subjects, recruiting volunteers is clearly a superior method. It is worth noting that the effect on behavior of conducting experiments in a class- room setting may be substantially smaller in environments that are less sensitive than the notoriously-responsive institution of the dictator game. Nevertheless, while it is tempting to use the students who are already assembled for a class rather than to pursue the time- consuming recruitment of volunteers, the problems resulting form distortions introduced into the data may more than offset the lowered collection cost.

114 ECKEL AND GROSSMAN

Appendix A

Permission release

You are asked to participate in a study of economic decision making. We ask that you do not speak to each other or make comments, except to ask questions about the procedure of the study. We also request that you do not discuss the procedures of this study with others outside this room. If you are unwilling to comply with these rules, we ask that you leave n o w .

Instructions

You are asked to participate in a study of economic decision making. The study will last about one hour. You will receive compensation for your participation, which will be paid to you in cash at the end of the study. How you will be compensated is explained below.

One of the persons in the room will be chosen at random to be the monitor for today's study. The monitor will be paid $10. The monitor will verify that the instructions, as they appear here, have been followed.

Each subject has been given an ALLOCATION PROBLEM DECISION SHEET and an envelope.

To insure the anonymity of all subjects' decisions, each subject has been assigned ran- domly a five-digit code number. This number can be found at the top of the ALLOCATION PROBLEM DECISION SHEET. The code number is also written on the card attached to the ALLOCATION PROBLEM DECISION SHEET. Please keep this card and remember this number. You will collect your compensation for participating by this code number.

The ALLOCATION PROBLEM DECISION SHEET contains a series of allocation prob- lems. You will be asked to make an allocation decision for each problem. In each allocation problem you are paired with another player. The other player is a charity of your choice (selected from a list often charities). For each allocation problem you have been given an endowment of tokens which have monetary value. Each token is worth $0.10. You are asked to allocate these tokens between yourself and your charity of choice.

Examples of Allocation Problems:

Problem

1

2

3

Endowment

500 For every token you pass to the charity, the experimenter will match it with one additional token.

800 For every token you pass to the charity, the charity will receive one token.

1200 For every token you pass to the charity, the experimenter will refund to you one-quarter token.

Hold Pass

After everyone has completed making their decisions, the monitor will select at random one of the problems and the experimenters will carry out the decisions made for that problem for all subjects.

VOLUNTEERS AND PSEUDO-VOLUNTEERS 115

Attached to your ALLOCATION PROBLEM DECISION SHEET is an acknowledgment form. If you wish to relinquish your anonymity and receive recognition from your designated charity for your contribution, please complete this form completely. If you wish to remain anonymous, nothing further need be done.

Please place the ALLOCATION PROBLEM DECISION SHEET in the provided enve- lope and seal the envelope.

After completing these tasks, the experimenters will hand out a questionnaire and a second envelope. Please note that the questionnaire will be used for research purposes only.

After completing the questionnaire, please place the questionnaire and the envelope containing the ALLOCATION PROBLEM DECISION SHEET into the second envelope and seal the envelope.

The monitor and experimenters will collect the envelopes, open them, and determine your compensation and donation to the charity. Your compensation will be sealed in an envelope with your code number on its face. You may pick up your envelope at the end of the study.

The monitor and experimenters will also calculate the total donation to each of the charities. The experimenters will make out checks for these amounts, and place them, along with any recognition slips, in addressed and stamped envelopes. The monitor and an experimenter will go to the nearest mailbox and drop the envelope in the mailbox.

After signing the form that verifies that the study was conducted according to instructions, the monitor is free to leave.

If you have any questions about the procedures, please ask now.

Code Number

Allocation problem decision sheet

For this study, each of you will be paired with a charity of your choice. Following is a list of ten possible charities. Please select the charity you wish to be paired with by placing an X in the box next to your choice.

American Red Cross, Tarrant County Branch

Earth Share of Texas

Doctors Without Borders USA

Cancer Care Services

AIDS Outreach Center

YMCA of Arlington

African Christian Relief

Feed The Children

Women's Haven of Tarrant County

I Have A Dream Foundation

116 ECKEL AND GROSSMAN

O n the back o f this shee t are twelve a l locat ion p rob lems . R e a d each al locat ion p r o b l e m

carefully. For each al locat ion p rob lem y o u are g iven an e n d o w m e n t o f tokens. You m u s t

decide how to al locate you r e n d o w m e n t o f tokens b e t w e e n y o u r s e l f and your des igna t ed

charity. You m a y either:

1) keep all o f your tokens for yoursel f ,

2) keep s o m e o f you r tokens for y o u r s e l f and pa s s the r ema inde r to the charity, or

3) pa s s all o f you r tokens to the char i ty

Each token is worth $0.10.

Problem

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Endowment

100

75

40

75

60

60

40

60

For every token you pass to the charity, the charity will receive one token.

For every token you pass to the charity, the experimenter will refund to you one-half token.

For every token you pass to the charity, the experimenter will match it with one additional token.

For every token you pass to the charity, the experimenter will refund to you one-quarter token.

For every token you pass to the charity, the experimenter will refund to you one-quarter token.

For every token you pass to the charity, the experimenter will match it with one-third additional token.

For every token you pass to the charity, the experimenter will match it with one-fourth additional token.

For every token you pass to the charity, the charity will receive one token.

75 For every token you pass to the charity, the experimenter will match it with one additional token.

40 For every token you pass to the charity, the experimenter will refund to you one-half token.

40 For every token you pass to the charity, the experimenter will refund to you one-fifth token.

75 For every token you pass to the charity, the experimenter will match it with one-third additional token.

Hold Pass

I f y o u w o u l d like an a c k n o w l e d g m e n t f r om you r des igna ted char i ty for your contr ibut ion,

p l ea se fill in the in fo rmat ion below. Whether you f i l l this out or not, please put this slip in the envelope.

VOLUNTEERS AND PSEUDO-VOLUNTEERS

NAME (print)

ADDRESS

SIGNATURE

117

List of charities

Earth Share of Texas Protect our natural resources and public health and teach people how they can help through your gift to local, statewide, national, and international organizations.

Doctors Without Borders USA Doctors and nurses volunteer to provide urgent medical care in some 70 countries to civilian victims of war and disasters regardless of race, religion, politics.

African Christian Relief International Christian Relief Agency distributing lifesaving medicine, supplies, equipment, food, clothing, agroseeds: develops self-reliance, humanitarian, educational programs in 97 communities in Africa/America.

Feed The Children One of America's most effective charities providing food, clothing, medical care, education, and emergency relief to children in the United States and overseas since 1979.

AIDS Outreach Center Serves men, women, and children with HIV/AIDS and their families, educates the public about the HIV epidemic and advocates for sound H1V public policy.

American Red Cross, Tarrant County Chapter Humanitarian organization, led by volunteers, providing disaster relief, special medical transportation (WHEELS), health services, and military social services.

Cancer Care Services Provides financial, emotional, and social assistance to cancer patients and their families in Tarrant, Parker Counties.

Women's Haven of Tarrant County Provides emergency shelter and supportive counseling to women and children who are vic- tims of family violence. Children's programs; case management; traditional housing.

YMCA of Arlington In 1996, served over 10,000 participants from Arlington and Mansfield in youth sports, child care, aquatics, summer camp, and parent/child programs.

I Have A Dream Foundation A national educational program designed to encourage local at-risk youths to stay in school, providing $2,000 scholarships to a college/trade school upon graduation.

118

Appendix B

Self-report altru&m scale

1. I have helped push a stranger's ear out oft.he snow.

2. I have given directions to a stranger.

3. I have made change for a stranger.

4. I have given money to a charity.

5. I have given money to a stranger who needed it (or asked me for it).

6. I have donated goods or clothes to a charity.

7. I have done volunteer work for a charity.

8. I have donated blood.

9. I have helped carry a stranger's belongings (books, parcels, etc.)

10. I have delayed an elevator and held the door open for a stranger.

11. I have allowed someone to go ahead o f me in a lineup (at Xerox machine, at supermarket).

12. I have given a stranger a lift in my car.

13. I have pointed out a clerk's error (in a bank, at the supermarket) in undercharging me for an item.

14. I have let a neighbor whom I didn't know too well borrow an item of some value to me (e.g., a dish, tools, etc.).

15. I have bought 'charity' Christmas cards deliberately because I knew it was a good cause.

16. I have helped a classmate who I did not know that well with a homework assignment when my knowledge was greater than his or hers.

17. I have before being asked, voluntarily looked after a neighbor's pet or children without being paid for it.

18. I have offered to help a handicapped or elderly person across the street.

19. I have offered my seat on a bus or train to a stranger who was standing.

20. I have helped an acquaintance to move households.

Never Once

E C K E L A N D G R O S S M A N

More Often Very often than (3 or 4 (5 or more once times) times)

VOLUNTEERS AND PSEUDO-VOLUNTEERS

Subject survey sheet

I. AGE

3. Married? (Circle one number.) OI YES

5. Do you regularly attend religious services?

6. Which of the following categories best describes you? (Circle onenumber.)

OI Asian-American/Oriental

04 Hispanic-Black/Spanish-speaking Black

06 Native American/American Indian

7. Class (Circle one number)

01 Freshman 02 Sophomore

8. Major (Circle one number)

01 Economics 02 OtherBusineas

2. Wbet is your sex? (Circle one number.) Ol Male 02 Female

02 NO 4. Childran? (Circle one number,) 01 YES 02 NO

01 YES 02 NO

119

03 Junior 04 Senior 05 Graduate

03 Psychology 04 Sciences 05 Liberal Arts 06 Other

9. How many Economics classes have you taken at the university level? (Circle one)

None One Two Three Four Five Six More than Six

Please respond to items 10 through 13 by circling the number on the rating scale that best represents your opinion about that item. For

item 14, record your answers in the space provided. Your responses will remain completely anonymou:.

10. The procedures followed in this experiment preserved your anonymity. I 2 3

I 1. The tokens you passed to your designated charity will be converted to I 2 3 dollars and be sent to the charity.

12. The instructions for the experiment were clear and easy to follow. 1 2 3

13. The recipients of donations to your designated Charity are deserving of I 2 3 support.

14. If you could make a donation to any charity, which one would it be?

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Jim Andreoni, Lise Vesterlund, an anonymous referee and the editor of this journal for comments and suggestions• We thank Stacy Gray for research assistance, and the instructors for providing access to their classes•

Notes

1. A complete description o f procedure and design is provided in Eckel and Grossman (1999).

2. The experiment and other results are reported in more detail in Eckel and Grossman (1999).

Strongly Disagree

S~ong~ Ague

4 5

4 5

4 5

4 5

05

02 B]ack/Afrlcan-American 03 White/Caucasian

Hispanic*White/Spanish-speaking White

07 Other (Please specify: )

120 ECKEL AND GROSSMAN

3. Three were classes in economics, one in psychology. None were taught by the experimenters. 4. The decision problems differ by: endowment (40 tokens, 60 tokens, 75 tokens, or 100 tokens); the cost to the

subject of contributing $1 to the charity ($1, $0.80, $0.75, and $0.50); and whether the reduction in eust is a result of a rebate of a portion of the contribution, or of a matching of the contribution.

5. Dropped subjects had either failed to complete the Allocation Decision Problem Sheet, failed to understand instructions received, or failed to answer the required questions on the survey form. The subject dropped from classroom sessions claimed to be an 87-year-old, unmarried female of Slavic/Mongol descent.

6. See, for example, Clotfelter (1980, 1990). 7. Because the logarithm of zero is not defined, it is customary in studies of the effect of the tax system on

charitable giving to add a small amount ($10 is common) to the contribution, thereby allowing the dependent variable to be expressed as a logarithm. We have added only $0.10 rather than $10 to adjust for the fact that in our study the subjects' endowments are quite small, rather than being their aftertax net income.

8. Looking at the characteristics separately, there is no clear pattern for SEX, but the coeffient on RELIGION is smaller for the volunteer sessions in 9/12 regressions, and the coefficient on the ALTRUISM SCORE is smaller in 8/12.

R e f e r e n c e s

Andreoni, J. and Miller, J.H. (1998). "Giving According to GARP: An Experimental Study of Rationality and Altruism." Unpublished manuscript, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Andreoni, J. and Vesterlund, L. (forthcoming). "Which is the Fair Sex? Gender Differences in Altruism." Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Camerer, C.F. and Hogarth, R.M. (1999). "The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capit-labor-Production Framework." Journal of Risk and Uncertainty. 19(103), 7-42.

Clotfelter, C.T. (1980). "Tax Incentives and Charitable Giving: Evidence from a Panel of Taxpayers." Journal of Public Economics, 13, 319-340.

Clotfelter, C.T. (1989). "The Impact of Tax Reform on Charitable Giving: A 1989 perspective." In J. Slemrod (ed.), Do Taxes Matter: The lmpact of the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Eckel, C.C. and Grossman, P.J. (1996). "Altruism in Anonymous Dictator Games" Games andEconomic Behavior 16:181-191.

Eckel, C.C. and Grossman, P.J. (1999). "Rebate Versus Matching: Does how we Subsidize Charitable Contributions Matter?" Unpublished manuscript, Department of Economics, Virginia Tech.

Epps, T.W. and Singleton, K.J. (1986). "An Omnibus Test for the Two-Sample Problem Using the Empirical Characteristic Function" Journal of Statistics and Computer Simulation, vol. 26, pp. 177-203.

Rushton, J., Chrisjohn, R., and Fekken, G. (1981). "The Altruistic Personality and the Self-Report Altruism Scale." Personality andlndividual Differences, vol. 2, pp. 292-302.