Lab-Sophistication: Does Repeated Participation in Laboratory Experiments Affect Pro-Social Behaviour?

Experimental social scientists working at research-intensive institutions deal inevitably with subjects who have most likely participated in previous experiments. It is an important methodological question to know whether participants that acquired a high level of lab-sophistication show altered pro-social behavioural patterns. In this paper, we focus both on the potential effect subjects’ lab-sophistication, and role knowledge about other participants. Our main findings while per se does not significantly affect behaviour, for sophisticated counterpart’s (un)sophistication may systematically alter their choices. This result should induce caution among experimenters whether, settings, information can be inferred by participants, due characteristics recruitment mechanisms, management experimental sessions or contextual clues.