A meta analysis of lost-letter field experiments

IF 2.5 2区经济学 Q2 ECONOMICS

Journal of Economic Psychology Pub Date : 2024-08-30 DOI:10.1016/j.joep.2024.102759

引用次数: 0

Abstract

The lost-letter technique (Milgram et al., 1965) has been used for almost 60 years to measure social attitudes and helping behavior in psychological, sociological, and economic research. We provide a meta-analysis of lost-letter experiments to summarize the evidence. We analyze 78 studies with an overall sample size of 53,504 letters from 18 countries on five continents. We find an average return rate of 50 percent across all countries. Our meta-analysis shows that the return rate is lower for political or deviant issues. Stamped letters are also more likely to be returned, but letters with money are not more likely to be returned. A high socio-economic environment increases the chances of the return. We conclude that in line with the lost-letter paradigm, the technique allows capturing citizens’ attitudes toward the issue communicated. However, citizens do not act selflessly but react differently depending on the type of incentives.

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失信现场实验的元分析

遗失信件技术（Milgram 等人，1965 年）用于测量心理学、社会学和经济学研究中的社会态度和帮助行为已有近 60 年的历史。我们对丢失信件实验进行了荟萃分析，以总结证据。我们分析了来自五大洲 18 个国家的 78 项研究，总样本量为 53504 封信件。我们发现所有国家的平均退回率为 50%。我们的荟萃分析表明，政治性或离经叛道问题的退信率较低。加盖邮戳的信件也更容易被退回，但带有钱款的信件并不更容易被退回。较高的社会经济环境会增加信件被退回的几率。我们的结论是，根据丢失信件范例，该技术可以捕捉到公民对所传达问题的态度。然而，公民并不是无私奉献的，而是根据激励类型做出不同的反应。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Economic Psychology Multiple-

CiteScore

5.20

自引率

31.40%

发文量

审稿时长

63 days

期刊介绍： The Journal aims to present research that will improve understanding of behavioral, in particular psychological, aspects of economic phenomena and processes. The Journal seeks to be a channel for the increased interest in using behavioral science methods for the study of economic behavior, and so to contribute to better solutions of societal problems, by stimulating new approaches and new theorizing about economic affairs. Economic psychology as a discipline studies the psychological mechanisms that underlie economic behavior. It deals with preferences, judgments, choices, economic interaction, and factors influencing these, as well as the consequences of judgements and decisions for economic processes and phenomena. This includes the impact of economic institutions upon human behavior and well-being. Studies in economic psychology may relate to different levels of aggregation, from the household and the individual consumer to the macro level of whole nations. Economic behavior in connection with inflation, unemployment, taxation, economic development, as well as consumer information and economic behavior in the market place are thus among the fields of interest. The journal also encourages submissions dealing with social interaction in economic contexts, like bargaining, negotiation, or group decision-making. The Journal of Economic Psychology contains: (a) novel reports of empirical (including: experimental) research on economic behavior; (b) replications studies; (c) assessments of the state of the art in economic psychology; (d) articles providing a theoretical perspective or a frame of reference for the study of economic behavior; (e) articles explaining the implications of theoretical developments for practical applications; (f) book reviews; (g) announcements of meetings, conferences and seminars.