Urszula Markowska-Przybyła,

Wrocław University of Economics,

Wrocław, Poland,

E-mail: ump@ue.wroc.pl

NORMS OF EGALITY AND THE GAP BETWEEN ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOUR AMONGST POLISH STUDENTS: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

David M. Ramsey,

Wrocław University of Science and Technology,

Wrocław, Poland,

E-mail: david.ramsey@pwr.edu.pl

Abstract. Social norms and ideals play an important role in determining the attitudes and behaviour of individuals. However, in many scenarios adhering to such norms or ideals leads to an individual incurring costs. In such a case, a gap may appear between the attitudes (intentions) and the behaviour of an individual. This article considers the gap between declared and observed readiness to punish an individual seen to act unfairly on the basis an experimental version of the Ultimatum Game. The authors highlight the difficulties of analysing such a gap. This experimental game was played by a sample of 1540 Polish students of state universities in each of the 16 Polish regions. These participants also filled out a questionnaire regarding their social capital, as well as attitudes and beliefs related to inequality and reciprocation. An analysis of the behaviour of individuals is presented, together with a mathematical model describing the gap between behaviour and stated intentions.

Received: December, 2016

1st Revision: March, 2017

Accepted: June, 2017

DOI: 10.14254/2071- 789X.2017/10-3/16

JEL Classification: C70, C72

Keywords: Experimental game theory, egality, intention-behaviour gap, social capital, Ultimatum Game, Poland.