Social neuroeconomics combines tools form neuroscience and task from economics, trying to understand brain processes underlying decision-making in a social context. Examples of (behavioral) economic tasks used in neuroeconomics are the Dictator Game, Ultimatum Game, Trust Game and Public Goods Game. These tasks are often presented as a one-shot anonymous game to avoid the strategic complexity of repeated games, such as reciprocity. A typical finding in these experiments is that people behave pro-social. But the question arises: why do people act pro-social in an anonymous one-shot game? This position paper discusses why people exert pro-social behavior in the one-shot Dictator Game, and if the Dictator Game is therefore a good measure for social …show more content…
Bardsley (2008) argues that subjects might feel that the Dictator Game is about giving, since one can either give or do nothing. Participants might have the desire to be a good subject and hence give in the game. He shows that when it is possible to take money from the other player, which in theory would not affect he results, the generosity of most subjects disappears because the attitude toward the experiment changes. In line with this finding Bolton, Katok & Zwick (1998) argue that differences in the context of the game account for differences across studies on the Dictator Game.
The research of Levit and List (2007) supports the artefact of experimentation argument. In their article they use decades of evidence from psychological and economic experiments. They argue that the receiver seemingly ‘demands’ a positive gift, since giving nothing is equivalent to being entirely selfish with money that an authoritative figure has just kindly endowed. When the same authoritative figure asks the dictator if she would like to share the endowment, Levit and List argue that the wheels of motion for giving are set in place. They denote this effect as social