Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-nzzs5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-14T19:01:18.762Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What brings your subjects to the lab? A field experiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Michal Krawczyk
Michal Krawczyk*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
*
e-mail: mkrawczyk@wne.uw.edu.pl
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This paper reports a field experiment involving manipulation of invitations to register in an experimental economics subject database. Two types of invitations were sent out: one emphasizing pecuniary and the other non-pecuniary benefits of participation. The former resulted in higher response rate and the strength of this treatment effect was comparable in different groups defined by gender and academic major. In a follow-up test conducted about a year later it was found that individuals recruited by invitations emphasizing monetary benefits were less willing to make an effort to participate in a non-paid survey. The very same survey also showed that they were marginally less altruistic in general.

Keywords

Experimental economicsRecruitment proceduresIncentivesSelection into experiments

JEL classification

C9: Design of Experiments
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , November 2011 , pp. 482 - 489
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NC
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 The Author(s)

Footnotes

I gratefully acknowledge helpful comments from the editor, Jordi Brandts, as well as two anonymous referees. I am also indebted to the administrative staff of the University of Warsaw who made this research possible.

References

Croson, R., & Gneezy, U. (2009). Gender differences in preferences. Journal of Economic Literature, 47(2), 448–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckel, C., & Grossman, P. (1998). Are women less selfish than men?: Evidence from dictator experiments. The Economic Journal, 108(448), 726–735.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckel, C., & Grossman, P. (2000). Volunteers and pseudo-volunteers: The effect of recruitment method in dictator experiments. Experimental Economics, 3(2), 107–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Falk, A., & Heckman, J. (2009). Lab experiments are a major source of knowledge in the social sciences. Science, 326(5952), 535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, B., & Schulze, G. (2000). Does economics make citizens corrupt? Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 43(1), 101–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greiner, B. (2004). The online recruitment system ORSEE 2.0—a guide for the organization of experiments in economics. University of Cologne, Working Paper Series in Economics, p. 10.Google Scholar
Harrison, G., Lau, M., & Rutström, E. (2009). Risk attitudes, randomization to treatment, and self-selection into experiments. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 70(3), 498–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Innocenti, A., & Pazienza, M. (2006). Altruism and gender in the trust game. Labsi Working Paper, 5.Google Scholar
Jackson, J., Procidano, M., & Cohen, C. (1989). Subject pool sign-up procedures: A threat to external validity. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 17(1), 29–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
List, J. (2006). The behavioralist meets the market: measuring social preferences and reputation effects in actual transactions. Journal of Political Economy, 114(1), 1–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacDonald, A. (1972). Characteristics of volunteer subjects under three recruiting methods: Pay, extra credit, and love of science. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 39(2), 222–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Read, D. (2005). Monetary incentives, what are they good for? Journal of Economic Methodology, 12(2), 265–276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rushton, J., Chrisjohn, R., & Fekken, G. (1981). The altruistic personality and the self-report altruism scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 2(4), 293–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Senn, C., & Desmarais, S. (2001). Are our recruitment practices for sex studies working across gender? The effect of topic and gender of recruiter on participation rates of university men and women. The Journal of Sex Research, 38(2), 111–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharp, E., Pelletier, L., & Lévesque, C. (2006). The double-edged sword of rewards for participation in psychology experiments. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science/Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement, 38(3), 269–277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar