Simon Gächter
Biographic Data
| ID | 1471187 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Simon Gächter |
| GIVEN NAMES | Simon |
| FAMILY NAME | Gächter |
| SIGNATURE | GÄCHTER S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Nottingham |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7182-8505 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 317 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Measuring Group Cohesion to Reveal the Power of Social Relationships in Team Production
We introduce group cohesion to study the economic relevance of social relationships in team production. We operationalize measurement of group cohesion, adapting the “oneness scale” from psychology. A series of experiments, including a preregistered replication, reveals strong, positive associations between group cohesion and performance assessed in weak-link coordination games, with high-cohesion groups being likely to achieve superior equilibri…
Group identity and peer effects in rule-following
The contractual dispute resolution game
Why people follow rules
Why people follow rules, especially laws and social norms, is debated across the human sciences. The importance of intrinsic respect for rules is particularly controversial. To reveal the behavioural principles of rule-following, we develop CRISP, an interdisciplinary framework that explains rule-conformity C as a function of intrinsic respect for rules R, extrinsic incentives I, social expectations S and social preferences P. We deploy CRISP in …
Who discriminates? Evidence from a trust game experiment across three societies
Individual-level loss aversion in riskless and risky choices
Loss aversion can occur in riskless and risky choices. We present novel evidence on both in a non-student sample (660 randomly selected customers of a car manufacturer). We measure loss aversion in riskless choice in endowment effect experiments within and between subjects and find similar levels of average loss aversion in both. The subjects of the within study also participate in a simple lottery choice task which arguably measures loss aversio…
People prefer coordinated punishment in cooperative interactions
Societal background influences social learning in cooperative decision making
Humans owe their ecological success to their great capacities for social learning and cooperation: learning from others helps individuals adjust to their environment and can promote cooperation in groups. Classic and recent studies indicate that the cultural organization of societies shapes the influence of social information on decision making and suggest that collectivist values (prioritizing the group relative to the individual) increase tende…
Conducting interactive experiments online
Online labor markets provide new opportunities for behavioral research, but conducting economic experiments online raises important methodological challenges. This particularly holds for interactive designs. In this paper, we provide a methodological discussion of the similarities and differences between interactive experiments conducted in the laboratory and online. To this end, we conduct a repeated public goods experiment with and without puni…
Reciprocity and the tragedies of maintaining and providing the commons
Intrinsic honesty and the prevalence of rule violations across societies
Measuring the Closeness of Relationships
Understanding the nature and influence of social relationships is of increasing interest to behavioral economists, and behavioral scientists more generally. In turn, this creates a need for tractable, and reliable, tools for measuring fundamental aspects of social relationships. We provide a comprehensive evaluation of the 'Inclusion of the Other in the Self' (IOS) Scale, a handy pictorial tool for measuring the subjectively perceived closeness o…
Eye Movements in Strategic Choice
In risky and other multiattribute choices, the process of choosing is well described by random walk or drift diffusion models in which evidence is accumulated over time to threshold. In strategic choices, level- k and cognitive hierarchy models have been offered as accounts of the choice process, in which people simulate the choice processes of their opponents or partners. We recorded the eye movements in 2 × 2 symmetric games including dominance…
Peer effects and social preferences in voluntary cooperation
Social preferences and social influence effects (“peer effects”) are well documented, but little is known about how peers shape social preferences. Settings where social preferences matter are often situations where peer effects are likely too. In a gift-exchange experiment with independent payoffs between two agents we find causal evidence for peer effects. Efforts are positively correlated but with a kink: agents follow a low-performing but not…
Human Prosocial Motivation and the Maintenance of Social Order
This chapter presents some insights from basic behavioral research on the role of human prosocial motivation to maintain social order. I argue that social order can be conceptualized as a public goods game. Past attempts to explain social order typically relied on the assumption of selfish and rational agents (“homo economicus”). The last twenty years of research in behavioral and experimental economics have challenged this view. After presenting…
The behavioral validity of the strategy method in public good experiments
Micromotives, Microstructure, and Macrobehavior
How micromotives, the microstructural features of interactions, and macrobehavior are related is a fundamental question in all social sciences. In this article we argue that laboratory experiments are a useful tool to study this question, because the experimenter can measure motivations, manipulate microstructures, and sometimes even exploit variation in the macrosocial environment. We illustrate the experimental approach with the help of four ex…
Social Preferences, Beliefs, and the Dynamics of Free Riding in Public Goods Experiments
One lingering puzzle is why voluntary contributions to public goods decline over time in experimental and real-world settings. We show that the decline of cooperation is driven by individual preferences for imperfect conditional cooperation. Many people's desire to contribute less than others, rather than changing beliefs of what others will contribute over time or people's heterogeneity in preferences makes voluntary cooperation fragile. Univers…
Antisocial Punishment Across Societies
We document the widespread existence of antisocial punishment, that is, the sanctioning of people who behave prosocially. Our evidence comes from public goods experiments that we conducted in 16 comparable participant pools around the world. However, there is a huge cross-societal variation. Some participant pools punished the high contributors as much as they punished the low contributors, whereas in others people only punished low contributors.…
Trust, voluntary cooperation, and socio-economic background
Strong reciprocity, human cooperation, and the enforcement of social norms
Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from a public goods experiment
Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments
Casual evidence as well as daily experience suggest that many people have a strong aversion against being the 'sucker' in social dilemma situations. As a consequence, those who cooperate may be willing to punish free-riding, even if this is costly for them and even if they cannot expect future benefits from their punishment activities. A main purpose of this paper is to show experimentally that there is indeed a widespread willingness of the coop…
Fairness and Retaliation
This paper shows that reciprocity has powerful implications for many economic domains. It is an important determinant in the enforcement of contracts and social norms and enhances the possibilities of collective action greatly. Reciprocity may render the provision of explicit incentive inefficient because the incentives may crowd out voluntary co-operation. It strongly limits the effects of competition in markets with incomplete contracts and giv…
Collective action as a social exchange
Fairness and Retaliation
This paper shows that reciprocity has powerful implications for many economic domains. It is an important determinant in the enforcement of contracts and social norms and enhances the possibilities of collective action greatly. Reciprocity may render the provision of explicit incentive inefficient because the incentives may crowd out voluntary co-operation. It strongly limits the effects of competition in markets with incomplete contracts and giv…
Strong reciprocity, human cooperation, and the enforcement of social norms
The behavioral validity of the strategy method in public good experiments
Reciprocity and the tragedies of maintaining and providing the commons
Micromotives, Microstructure, and Macrobehavior
How micromotives, the microstructural features of interactions, and macrobehavior are related is a fundamental question in all social sciences. In this article we argue that laboratory experiments are a useful tool to study this question, because the experimenter can measure motivations, manipulate microstructures, and sometimes even exploit variation in the macrosocial environment. We illustrate the experimental approach with the help of four ex…
Peer effects and social preferences in voluntary cooperation
Social preferences and social influence effects (“peer effects”) are well documented, but little is known about how peers shape social preferences. Settings where social preferences matter are often situations where peer effects are likely too. In a gift-exchange experiment with independent payoffs between two agents we find causal evidence for peer effects. Efforts are positively correlated but with a kink: agents follow a low-performing but not…
Eye Movements in Strategic Choice
In risky and other multiattribute choices, the process of choosing is well described by random walk or drift diffusion models in which evidence is accumulated over time to threshold. In strategic choices, level- k and cognitive hierarchy models have been offered as accounts of the choice process, in which people simulate the choice processes of their opponents or partners. We recorded the eye movements in 2 × 2 symmetric games including dominance…
Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives in a repeated game with incomplete contracts
Who discriminates? Evidence from a trust game experiment across three societies
Reciprocity as a Contract Enforcement Device
FLWNO
Reciprocity and economics
Collective action as a social exchange
Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives in a repeated game with incomplete contracts
Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments
Casual evidence as well as daily experience suggest that many people have a strong aversion against being the 'sucker' in social dilemma situations. As a consequence, those who cooperate may be willing to punish free-riding, even if this is costly for them and even if they cannot expect future benefits from their punishment activities. A main purpose of this paper is to show experimentally that there is indeed a widespread willingness of the coop…
Fairness and Retaliation
This paper shows that reciprocity has powerful implications for many economic domains. It is an important determinant in the enforcement of contracts and social norms and enhances the possibilities of collective action greatly. Reciprocity may render the provision of explicit incentive inefficient because the incentives may crowd out voluntary co-operation. It strongly limits the effects of competition in markets with incomplete contracts and giv…
Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from a public goods experiment
Strong reciprocity, human cooperation, and the enforcement of social norms
Trust, voluntary cooperation, and socio-economic background
Antisocial Punishment Across Societies
We document the widespread existence of antisocial punishment, that is, the sanctioning of people who behave prosocially. Our evidence comes from public goods experiments that we conducted in 16 comparable participant pools around the world. However, there is a huge cross-societal variation. Some participant pools punished the high contributors as much as they punished the low contributors, whereas in others people only punished low contributors.…
Social Preferences, Beliefs, and the Dynamics of Free Riding in Public Goods Experiments
One lingering puzzle is why voluntary contributions to public goods decline over time in experimental and real-world settings. We show that the decline of cooperation is driven by individual preferences for imperfect conditional cooperation. Many people's desire to contribute less than others, rather than changing beliefs of what others will contribute over time or people's heterogeneity in preferences makes voluntary cooperation fragile. Univers…
Micromotives, Microstructure, and Macrobehavior
How micromotives, the microstructural features of interactions, and macrobehavior are related is a fundamental question in all social sciences. In this article we argue that laboratory experiments are a useful tool to study this question, because the experimenter can measure motivations, manipulate microstructures, and sometimes even exploit variation in the macrosocial environment. We illustrate the experimental approach with the help of four ex…
The behavioral validity of the strategy method in public good experiments
Human Prosocial Motivation and the Maintenance of Social Order
This chapter presents some insights from basic behavioral research on the role of human prosocial motivation to maintain social order. I argue that social order can be conceptualized as a public goods game. Past attempts to explain social order typically relied on the assumption of selfish and rational agents (“homo economicus”). The last twenty years of research in behavioral and experimental economics have challenged this view. After presenting…
Measuring the Closeness of Relationships
Understanding the nature and influence of social relationships is of increasing interest to behavioral economists, and behavioral scientists more generally. In turn, this creates a need for tractable, and reliable, tools for measuring fundamental aspects of social relationships. We provide a comprehensive evaluation of the 'Inclusion of the Other in the Self' (IOS) Scale, a handy pictorial tool for measuring the subjectively perceived closeness o…
Eye Movements in Strategic Choice
In risky and other multiattribute choices, the process of choosing is well described by random walk or drift diffusion models in which evidence is accumulated over time to threshold. In strategic choices, level- k and cognitive hierarchy models have been offered as accounts of the choice process, in which people simulate the choice processes of their opponents or partners. We recorded the eye movements in 2 × 2 symmetric games including dominance…
Peer effects and social preferences in voluntary cooperation
Social preferences and social influence effects (“peer effects”) are well documented, but little is known about how peers shape social preferences. Settings where social preferences matter are often situations where peer effects are likely too. In a gift-exchange experiment with independent payoffs between two agents we find causal evidence for peer effects. Efforts are positively correlated but with a kink: agents follow a low-performing but not…
Intrinsic honesty and the prevalence of rule violations across societies
Reciprocity and the tragedies of maintaining and providing the commons
Societal background influences social learning in cooperative decision making
Humans owe their ecological success to their great capacities for social learning and cooperation: learning from others helps individuals adjust to their environment and can promote cooperation in groups. Classic and recent studies indicate that the cultural organization of societies shapes the influence of social information on decision making and suggest that collectivist values (prioritizing the group relative to the individual) increase tende…
Conducting interactive experiments online
Online labor markets provide new opportunities for behavioral research, but conducting economic experiments online raises important methodological challenges. This particularly holds for interactive designs. In this paper, we provide a methodological discussion of the similarities and differences between interactive experiments conducted in the laboratory and online. To this end, we conduct a repeated public goods experiment with and without puni…
People prefer coordinated punishment in cooperative interactions
Individual-level loss aversion in riskless and risky choices
Loss aversion can occur in riskless and risky choices. We present novel evidence on both in a non-student sample (660 randomly selected customers of a car manufacturer). We measure loss aversion in riskless choice in endowment effect experiments within and between subjects and find similar levels of average loss aversion in both. The subjects of the within study also participate in a simple lottery choice task which arguably measures loss aversio…
Who discriminates? Evidence from a trust game experiment across three societies
Measuring Group Cohesion to Reveal the Power of Social Relationships in Team Production
We introduce group cohesion to study the economic relevance of social relationships in team production. We operationalize measurement of group cohesion, adapting the “oneness scale” from psychology. A series of experiments, including a preregistered replication, reveals strong, positive associations between group cohesion and performance assessed in weak-link coordination games, with high-cohesion groups being likely to achieve superior equilibri…
Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies (26 works) · Social Psychology (24 works) · Economics (23 works) · Psychology (23 works) · Microeconomics (19 works) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (14 works) · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies (13 works) · Political science (13 works) · Public good (10 works) · Positive economics (8 works)