Working Papers and Work in Progress

ABSTRACT

There is much disagreement about the extent to which financial incentives motivate study participants. We elicit preferences for being paid for completing a survey, including a one-in-twenty chance of winning a $100 electronic gift card, a guaranteed electronic gift card with the same expected value, and an option to refuse payment. More than twice as many participants chose the lottery as chose the guaranteed payment.  Given that most people are risk averse, this pattern suggests that factors beyond risk preferences—such as hassle costs—influenced their decision-making. Almost 20 percent of participants actively refused payment, demonstrating low monetary motivation. We find both systematic and unobserved heterogeneity in the characteristics of who turned down payment. The propensity to refuse payment is more than four times as large among individuals 50 and older compared to younger individuals, suggesting a tradeoff between financially motivating participants and obtaining a representative sample. Overall, our results suggest that modest electronic gift card payments violate key requirements of Vernon Smith’s induced value theory.

KEY WORDS

Incentives, motivation, induced value theory

Pre-analysis plan available here.

Abbreviated Instructions, Debriefing and Full List of Posts

Complete Bank of Stock Photos Used for Profile Images

Online SI Appendix

ABSTRACT

We design an online experiment that mimics a Twitter/X “feed” to test whether (perceived) poster gender influences users’ propensity to doubt the veracity of a given post. On average, posts by women are less likely to be flagged as concerning than identical posts by men. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that men are more likely to flag female-authored posts as the post’s topic domain becomes more male-stereotyped.  Female users do not exhibit the same bias.  Actual post veracity, user ideology, and user familiarity with Twitter do not explain the findings. Flagging behavior on Twitter’s crowdsourced fact-checking program is consistent with these findings.

KEY WORDS

Gender differences, misinformation, economic experiments

Online Appendix

ABSTRACT

This paper describes a randomized controlled field experiment designed to measure how individuals respond to racial and gender diversity in representations of certain archetypical occupations. We ask participants in two pools – a tech conferences and online – to evaluate their user experience with an image search engine tool and randomize them to see either diverse or non-diverse images. Subjects in the less diverse treatment view images that are predominantly white men for the high-status occupations (boss and professor) and predominantly women for the low-status occupations (nurse and clerk). In the more diverse treatment, subjects view image sets that contain a more equitable distribution of gender and race. We observe that diverse images result in significantly higher ratings across all participants and find no evidence of in-group bias in this context. However, women are disproportionately more dissatisfied with the lack of diversity in high-status occupations (boss and professor) than men are. For the low-status words (clerk and nurse), we find weaker treatment effects and no heterogeneity in the satisfaction ratings by gender or race. Free response qualitative data provide a potential explanation for the findings: while the extreme underrepresentation of women and minorities in the high-status, low-pay professions is salient, the equivalent underrepresentation of white men in the low-status, low-pay professions is less salient. Correcting the asymmetry in the way we promote diversity in high-status and low-status domains has important policy implications.

KEYWORDS

Diversity; Gender differences; Economic experiments 

CITATION

Flory, Jeffrey, Leibbrandt, Andreas, Shurchkov, Olga, Stoddard, Olga, and Alva Taylor. 2023. Consumer Preferences for Diversity: A Field Experiment in Product Design. Working Paper. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4281634.

Visit our study website here.

Pre-registered here.

ABSTRACT

This study is designed to experimentally test the effect of two behavioral nudges – pledging to act civilly and public observability – on civility in online communications. In our study, online participants will provide responses to real statements sourced from online platforms on various topics, choosing from a list containing civil and uncivil responses that either agree or disagree with a given statement. Furthermore, we will randomize subjects into treatments where their responses would potentially be publicly viewed by others, while other subjects will be providing purely hypothetical responses. We will also collect subject beliefs, ideological leanings, and demographics to conduct heterogeneity analyses.

Pre-registered here.

ABSTRACT

Disinformation is a growing concern in today's digital environment, influencing public opinion on social media, political discourse, and everyday decision-making. This study investigates individuals’ ability to discern the truthfulness of self-reports made by anonymous participants, focusing on how the extremeness of a claim affects perceived credibility. Using an online experiment, participants will assess reports generated by others in controlled settings, with some exposed to incentives for being believed and others provided with gender information about the sender. We test whether people behave as Bayesians when assessing potential deception and whether incentives, gender, and belief priors systematically influence their evaluations. Our findings contribute to the understanding of truth perception, the strategic modification of statements based on audience incentives, and the mechanisms underlying the spread of misinformation.