Main Article Content

Abstract

Purpose This study investigates antisocial behaviour where participants made payoff destruction decisions (“money burning”) that are conditional on the co-participant being a human or a computer.


Methods This study uses the joy-of-destruction minigame experiment with Indonesian citizens living in Australia as the participants. Regression methods are used to observe whether discrimination occurs and to identify factors associated with antisocial behaviour.


Findings This study finds money burning against the computer to be more prevalent than against humans. There was very limited support that such behaviour was correlated with demographic characteristics or subjective norms, suggesting that the presence of a computer co-participant drives the result.


Implications The results have a methodological implication for experimental economics where experimenters should anticipate that computer players may have an unforeseen impact on human behaviour. Policy-wise, the study shows a relatively cohesive community which may be driven by the multicultural policy of Australia.


Originality This is the first antisocial behaviour economics experiment that includes a computer as a potential co-participant.

Keywords

Antisocial behaviour Other-regarding preferences Lab-in-the-field experiment Human-computer interaction

Article Details

Author Biography

Muhammad Ryan Sanjaya, Department of Economics, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Department of Economics

How to Cite
Sanjaya, M. R. (2022). Rage against the machine: A money-burning field experiment. Economic Journal of Emerging Markets, 14(1), 138–150. https://doi.org/10.20885/ejem.vol14.iss1.art11

References

  1. Abbink, K., & de Haan, T. (2014). Trust on the brink of Armageddon: The first-strike game. European Economic Review, 67, 190–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2014.01.009
  2. Abbink, K., & Herrmann, B. (2011). The Moral Costs of Nastiness. Economic Inquiry, 49(2), 631–633. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2010.00309.x
  3. Abbink, K., & Sadrieh, A. (2009). The pleasure of being nasty. Economics Letters, 105(3), 306–308. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2009.08.024
  4. Altemeyer, B., & Hunsberger, B. (2004). RESEARCH: A Revised Religious Fundamentalism Scale: The Short and Sweet of It. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 14(1), 47–54. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327582ijpr1401_4
  5. Astin, S., Redston, P., & Campbell, A. (2003). Sex differences in social representations of aggression: Men justify, women excuse? Aggressive Behavior, 29(2), 128–133. https://doi.org/doi:10.1002/ab.10044
  6. Bolton, G. E., & Ockenfels, A. (2000). ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition. American Economic Review, 90(1), 166–193. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.90.1.166
  7. Brandts, J., & Charness, G. (2011). The strategy versus the direct-response method: A first survey of experimental comparisons. Experimental Economics, 14(3), 375–398. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-011-9272-x
  8. Burton-Chellew, M. N., El Mouden, C., & West, S. A. (2016). Conditional cooperation and confusion in public-goods experiments. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(5), 1291–1296. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1509740113
  9. Buss, A. H., & Perry, M. (1992). The Aggression Questionnaire. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(3), 452–459. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.63.3.452
  10. Cassar, A., Grosjean, P., & Whitt, S. (2013). Legacies of violence: Trust and market development. Journal of Economic Growth, 18(3), 285–318. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10887-013-9091-3
  11. Christie, R., Geis, F. L., Festinger, L., & Schachter, S. (1970). Studies in Machiavellianism. Elsevier Science.
  12. Chuah, S. H., Fahoum, R., & Hoffmann, R. (2013). Fractionalization and trust in India: A field-experiment. Economics Letters, 119(2), 191–194. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2013.02.029
  13. Chuah, S. H., Feeny, S., Hoffmann, R., & Sanjaya, M. R. (2019). Conflict, ethnicity and gender: A money-burning field experiment in Indonesia. Economics Letters, 177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2019.01.010
  14. Croson, R., & Gneezy, U. (2009). Gender Differences in Preferences. Journal of Economic Literature, 47(2), 448–474. https://doi.org/10.1257/jel.47.2.448
  15. Diamond, Z., & Blackwell, C. (2017). Combating the Joy of Destruction with Pro-social Behavior. Review of Behavioral Economics, 4(3), 275–293. https://doi.org/10.1561/105.00000067
  16. Dufwenberg, M., & Muren, A. (2006). Generosity, anonymity, gender. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 61(1), 42–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2004.11.007
  17. Embrey, M., Frechette, G. R., & Lehrer, S. F. (2015). Bargaining and Reputation: An Experiment on Bargaining in the Presence of Behavioural Types. The Review of Economic Studies, 82(2), 608–631. https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdu029
  18. Engelmann, J. B., Meyer, F., Ruff, C. C., & Fehr, E. (2019). The neural circuitry of affect-induced distortions of trust. Science Advances, 5(3), eaau3413. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aau3413
  19. Fehr, E., & Schmidt, K. M. (2006). The Economics of Fairness, Reciprocity and Altruism – Experimental Evidence and New Theories. In Handbook of the economics of giving, altruism and reciprocity (Vol. 1, pp. 615–691).
  20. Fershtman, C., & Gneezy, U. (2001). Discrimination in a Segmented Society: An Experimental Approach. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(1), 351–377. https://doi.org/10.1162/003355301556338
  21. Fischbacher, U., Gächter, S., & Quercia, S. (2012). The behavioral validity of the strategy method in public good experiments. Journal of Economic Psychology, 33(4), 897–913. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2012.04.002
  22. Litvak, P. M., Lerner, J. S., Tiedens, L. Z., & Shonk, K. (2010). Fuel in the Fire: How Anger Impacts Judgment and Decision-Making. In International Handbook of Anger (pp. 287–310).
  23. March, C. (2021). Strategic interactions between humans and artificial intelligence: Lessons from experiments with computer players. Journal of Economic Psychology, 87, 102426. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2021.102426
  24. Messick, D. M. (1967). Interdependent decision strategies in zero‐sum games: A computer‐controlled study. Behavioral Science, 12(1), 33–48.
  25. Prediger, S., Vollan, B., & Herrmann, B. (2014). Resource scarcity and antisocial behavior. Journal of Public Economics, 119, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.07.007
  26. Rabin, M. (1993). Incorporating fairness into game theory and economics. American Economic Review, 83(5), 1281–1302.
  27. Rohrbaugh, J., & Jessor, R. (1975). Religiosity in youth: A personal control against deviant behavior. Journal of Personality, 43(1), 136–155. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1975.tb00577.x
  28. Sadrieh, A., & Schröder, M. (2016). Materialistic, pro-social, anti-social, or mixed – A within-subject examination of self- and other-regarding preferences. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 63, 114–124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2016.05.009
  29. Schulze, K. E. (2004). The Free Aceh Movement (GAM): Anatomy of a Separatist Organization. East-West Center.
  30. Selten, R. (1967). Die Strategiemethode zur Erforschung des eingeschränkt rationalen Verhaltens im Rahmen eines Oligopolexperiments. In H. Sauermann (Ed.), Beiträge zur experimentellen Wirtschaftsforschung: Vol. I (pp. 136–168). J.C.B. Mohr (Siebeck).
  31. Sent, E.-M., & van Staveren, I. (2018). A Feminist Review of Behavioral Economic Research on Gender Differences. Feminist Economics, 25(2), 1–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2018.1532595
  32. Van Lange, P. A. M. (2000). Beyond Self-interest: A Set of Propositions Relevant to Interpersonal Orientations. European Review of Social Psychology, 11(1), 297–331. https://doi.org/10.1080/14792772043000068
  33. Zeitzoff, T. (2014). Anger, Exposure to Violence, and Intragroup Conflict: A “Lab in the Field” Experiment in Southern Israel. Political Psychology, 35(3), 309–335. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12065
  34. Zizzo, D. J. (2003). Money burning and rank egalitarianism with random dictators. Economics Letters, 81(2), 263–266. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0165-1765(03)00190-3
No Related Submission Found