Experimental Evidence
Gneezy, Haruvy, and Yafe (2004) tested these results in a field experiment. Groups of six diners faced different billing arrangements. As predicted, subjects consume more when the bill is split equally than when they have to pay individually. Consumption is highest when the meal is free. Finally, members of some groups had to pay only one sixth of their individual costs. There was no difference between the amount consumed by these groups and those splitting the total cost of the meal equally. As the private cost of increased consumption is the same for both treatments but splitting the cost imposes a burden on other group members, this indicates that participants did not take the welfare of others into account when making their choices. This contrasts to a large number of laboratory experiments where subjects face analytically similar choices but the context is more abstract.
Read more about this topic: Unscrupulous Diner's Dilemma
Famous quotes containing the words experimental and/or evidence:
“If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning, concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Strict rules of evidence would destroy psychoanalysis and literary criticism.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)