Promoting socially desirable behaviors through persuasion and commitment: Experimental evidence

• Published in: Journal of behavioral and experimental economics Vol. 101; p. 101931
• Main Authors: Bazart, Cécile, Lefebvre, Mathieu, Rosaz, Julie
• Format: Journal Article Web Resource
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 01.12.2022
• Subjects: Applied Psychology; Business & economic sciences; Commitment; Communication; Economic systems & public economics; Economics and Econometrics; Economics and Finance; General Social Sciences; Humanities and Social Sciences; Persuasion; Sciences économiques & de gestion; Social Sciences (all); Systèmes économiques & économie publique; Voluntary contribution mechanism; Commitment; Voluntary contribution mechanism; Persuasion; Communication
• ISSN: 2214-8043; 2214-8051; 2214-8051
• DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2022.101931

Through a series of experiments, this paper tests the relative efficiency of persuasion and commitment schemes to increase and sustain contribution levels in a Voluntary Contribution Game. The design allows us to compare a baseline consisting of a repeated public good game to four treatments of the same game in which we successively introduce a persuasion message, commitment devices, and communication between subjects. Our results suggest that these non-monetary procedures significantly increase cooperation and reduce the decay of contributions across periods.