My favorite
neuroeconomic game is The Dictator, which is essentially an allocation game.
There are two players: the “dictator” and the “recipient”. At the beginning of
every round, the “dictator” receives a certain amount of money. He/she has to
decide how much money to give to himself/herself and how much to give to the
“recipient”. The game continues for the number of rounds designated.
I really
appreciate this game because it demonstrates how far people are willing to go
to serve their own needs and how much they care about other people around them.
Because it is a strong measure of human behavior and values, I think that an
experiment revolving around The Dictator game would serve as an excellent reflection
of the social and cultural environments and their influence on people’s
behavior. I would like to see how people of different nations and cultures
vary, if at all, in their behavior as the “dictator”.
http://upennsocialbook.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/dictator-game1.jpg
You bring up a good point; given how much of an influence an individuals culture can have when they mentalize about other people, I imagine culture would have quite a dramatic effect on these economic games. Perhaps no only on the decisions made, but in the circuit activity which predicts the response.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the most interesting part of the experiment is how I can be extended on. The ingroup/outgroup dictator game involving the two painting groups is an example I find particularly interesting.
I really like your comment about how culture can impact decisions in the dictator game. I also think Joshua brought up a good point about ingroup/outgroup effects during this game. One of the things I want to discuss in my final paper is how ingroup/outgroup effects can change people's behavior in moral situations, and this type of economic game would certainly be a good way to test that.
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