Essays in Behavioral and Experimental Economics

This dissertation consists of three essays which make use of laboratory experiments in order to investigate how procedural or contextual factors impact human behavior.;The first essay concerns cooperative behavior in groups formed with quota-based selection rules. Participants are randomly assigned to either an orange or a purple group. In the quota treatment, orange participants are chosen as members of a selected group by performance in a simple unrelated math task whereas purple participants are chosen based solely on the quota. The results show significantly less cooperation (measured as behavior in a public good game) in the quota treatment compared to a control treatment where all participants are treated symmetrically. Furthermore, this tendency is observed in both the orange and the purple participants, and regardless of the color of the matched player.;The second essay describes the results of a Prisoner's Dilemma experiment were we document that behavior is more cooperative when the game is called the Community Game than when it is called the Stock Market Game. However, the difference vanishes when only one of the subjects is in control of her action. The social framing effect also vanishes when the game is played sequentially. These findings are inconsistent with the hypothesis that the Community label triggers a desire to cooperate, but consistent with the hypothesis that social frames are coordination devices. More generally, our evidence indicates that social frames enter beliefs rather than preferences.;The third essay concerns testosterone change following monetary wins and losses and how these predict future financial risk-taking. We influence testosterone in male participants by having them win or lose money in a chance-based competition. Our design employs two treatments where we vary the amount of money at stake so that we can abstract from income effects. Controlling for the difference in score, we find that men who win have a higher increase in testosterone than men who lose. We also find that men who experience a greater testosterone increase are more willing to make risky gambles and this association remains when controlling for whether the man won or lost the competition.