Self-Selection and Participant Pools in Economic Experiments
The group of people who participate in lab experiments is often not representative of the general population. Experiments frequently use university students, who may differ systematically from other populations in age, cognitive skills, and social preferences. Furthermore, the act of volunteering for an experiment can introduce self-selection bias, where the volunteers are not a random sample of the population.
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Scrutiny in Economic Experiments
Artificiality of Experimental Tasks and Environments
Stakes in Economic Experiments
Self-Selection and Participant Pools in Economic Experiments
A key 2007 study examined why behavior in controlled economic experiments might not reflect real-world actions. Match each factor identified as a potential cause for this discrepancy with the scenario that best illustrates it.
Explaining Discrepancies Between Lab and Field Observations
In a university laboratory, an experiment finds that 80% of student participants, when given a $20 endowment, choose to give half of it to an anonymous peer. However, university records show that the average student donation to a campus-wide charity drive is less than $5 per year. Based on the central critiques of a prominent 2007 study on the external validity of lab experiments, which of the following provides the most comprehensive explanation for this discrepancy?
A central argument in critiques of laboratory-based economic experiments is that the artificiality and scrutiny of the lab environment systematically cause participants to behave more selfishly than they would in comparable real-world situations.
Evaluating Experimental Designs for External Validity