Do Pied Flycatchers Use Personal or Social Information for Replacement Clutch Decisions? A Field Experiment

Ethology ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 121 (7) ◽  
pp. 686-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wiebke Schuett ◽  
Bianca B. Koegl ◽  
Sasha R. X. Dall ◽  
Toni Laaksonen
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiment ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Replacement Clutch

scholarly journals Can Social Information Affect What Job You Choose and Keep?

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas C. Coffman ◽  
Clayton R. Featherstone ◽  
Judd B. Kessler
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiment ◽  
Treatment Effects ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Teach For America ◽  
Simple Theory ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Persistent Effect ◽  
Second Year ◽  
Over Time

We show that the provision of social information influences a high-stakes decision and this influence persists over time. In a field experiment involving thousands of admits to Teach For America, those told about the previous year's matriculation rate are more likely to accept a teaching job, complete training, start, and return a second year. To show robustness, we develop a simple theory that identifies subgroups where we expect larger treatment effects and find our effect is larger in those subgroups. That social information can have a powerful, persistent effect on high-stakes behavior broadens its relevance for policy and theory. (JEL D83, I21, J22, J45, L31, Z13)

scholarly journals Follow the crowd: Social information and crowdfunding donations in a large field experiment

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Van Teunenbroek ◽  
René Bekkers
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiment ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Participation Rate ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Large Field ◽  
Natural Field Experiment ◽  
Human Decision ◽  
Online Donation ◽  
Donation Behavior ◽  
The Individual

Purposely guiding human decision making with a discrete suggestion, ‘nudging’, is increasingly popular. One particularly promising nudge is to provide decision makers with information about the decisions of others, also referred to as social information. Social information is often applied in fundraising campaigns to increase individual donations. A discrete suggestion such as the donation amount of others can result in donors donating similar amounts. We examined effects of social information in a relatively new context, namely crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is a new online fundraising tool. Our study, based on a large natural field experiment (n = 24,070), tests to what extent social information affects online donation behavior and how its effects vary throughout the duration of a campaign. We show that social information increases the individual donation amount by 17%, which is close to the average of 14% found in previous studies. However, social information did not attract more donors: the participation rate was not affected. Our study is the first to pinpoint the stage of the funding campaign at which the effect of social information is most pronounced. We found that social information is most effective in increasing donations at the beginning of crowdfunding campaigns. All materials for this article are available at https://osf.io/epuj6/.

Social information and political participation on the internet: an experiment

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Margetts ◽  
Peter John ◽  
Tobias Escher ◽  
Stéphane Reissfelder
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Social Information ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Tipping Points ◽  
Treatment Groups ◽  
The Social

This paper tests whether the social information provided by the internet affects the decision to participate in politics. In a field experiment, subjects could choose to sign petitions and donate money to support causes. Participants were randomized into treatment groups that received varying information about how many other people had participated and a control group receiving no social information. Results show that social information has a varying effect according to the numbers provided, which is strongest when there are more than a million other participants, supporting claims about critical mass, and tipping points in political participation.

scholarly journals The Effects of Social Information on Volunteering: A Field Experiment

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 583-603 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Moseley ◽  
Oliver James ◽  
Peter John ◽  
Liz Richardson ◽  
Matt Ryan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Social Comparison ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Charitable Donations ◽  
Individual Contributions ◽  
Individualized Feedback ◽  
Very High ◽  
Different Levels

Research indicates that providing social information about other people’s charitable donations can increase individual contributions. However, the effects of social information on volunteering time are underexplored. In this field experiment, we measure the effects of different levels of feedback about other people’s time contributions (very high, high, and moderate) on individuals’ hours of volunteering. The experiment was conducted with students from English universities volunteering for a variety of organizations and with a group of predominantly older people volunteering for a national charity in England. Social information did not increase volunteering for either group relative to a control group receiving individualized feedback with no social comparison. For students whose baseline volunteering time was lower than the median, social information had a demotivating effect, reducing their volunteering, suggesting that donating time is different to donating money.

Hostility and Perceptions of Support in Ambiguous Social Interactions

2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana-Maria Vranceanu ◽  
Linda C. Gallo ◽  
Laura M. Bogart
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Information Processing ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Information Processing ◽  
Perceived Social Support ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Inverse Association ◽  
Processing Bias ◽  
Information Processing Bias

The present study investigated whether a social information processing bias contributes to the inverse association between trait hostility and perceived social support. A sample of 104 undergraduates (50 men) completed a measure of hostility and rated videotaped interactions in which a speaker disclosed a problem while a listener reacted ambiguously. Results showed that hostile persons rated listeners as less friendly and socially supportive across six conversations, although the nature of the hostility effect varied by sex, target rated, and manner in which support was assessed. Hostility and target interactively impacted ratings of support and affiliation only for men. At least in part, a social information processing bias could contribute to hostile persons' perceptions of their social networks.

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