Influence of predifine options on conditional cooperation

The currently existing literature shows that approximately a half of the subjects of the laboratory-tested Public Good Game are so-called conditional cooperators which means that their contributions increase as other teammates increase their contributions. However, current literature does not strictly define how much influence the design of the experiment has and what part is due to known behavioral influences. This diploma thesis analyses the influence of predefined decisions on conditional cooperation in Public good game using an economic experiment. The experiment provides three decision scenarios. In the first scenario, entities input an unconditional contribution to the group project. Remaining two scenarios allow entities to make a conditional contribution. Conditional scenarios differ in who the teammate is. The first conditional scenario works with another participant of the experiment as a teammate, while the second conditional scenario provides computer as a teammate; the computer selects contributions by randomly generating numbers between 0 and 10. The main difference – compared to other works is the inclusion of predefined options (allowing to add "the same number everywhere", "the same number as opponent", "a random number", "the same random number") which insert the contributions into the contribution table. For data analysis purposes I use the decomposition of the slope of average conditional contributions by the OLS method and the classification of subjects according to the patterns of their behavior by the Thöni and Volk method (2018). The results showed that adding possibilities to the experimental environment does not have a statistically significant effect on the decision to behave as a conditionally cooperative. Thus, the experimenter demand effect is not a statistically significant effect. A teammate's change also has no statistically significant effect on conditional collaboration, but its effect is many times greater.