Social and strategic interactions in experiments

This dissertation explores social and strategic interactions through three chapters, using controlled experiments to examine decision-making in competitive work environments and contexts involving ethnic discrimination. Chapter 1 investigates whether helping behavior in competitive workplaces can serve as a strategic signal of ability. A lab experiment reveals that workers help competitors to signal their competence, and employers recognize and reward this behavior. Chapter 2 examines ethnic discrimination, showing that individuals behave more generously toward ethnic minorities in high ethnic-salience situations, driven by social desirability bias. Chapter 3 investigates whether other-regarding preferences depend on ethnicity in Germany and the Netherlands, finding that ethnic background of recipients does not significantly affect preferences overall, although female decision-makers were less likely to maximize the lower payoff for minorities in spectator settings. The research offers valuable insights into the strategic and social factors that influence behavior in diverse settings.