IGEM:Carnegie Mellon University/2009/Notebook/SUCCEED Survey and Peer Incentives/2014/02/02

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Entry title Sent Alex a few papers on social incentives, group incentives: Pride and Prejudice: The Human Side of Incentive Theory (By Tore Ellingsen and Magnus Johannesson*) http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=3d7ac381-4a1b-4303-bd9b-e5f4f997752b%40sessionmgr110&vid=2&hid=125 Incentives and Prosocial Behavior (By ROLAND BE´NABOU AND JEAN TIROLE*) http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=0e590d76-f330-48eb-8f32-3523ce1d7c79%40sessionmgr110&vid=2&hid=125 Group lending, local information and peer selection (By Maitreesh Ghatak) http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0304387899000358/1-s2.0-S0304387899000358-main.pdf?_tid=850ba154-8c49-11e3-9739-00000aacb35e&acdnat=1391373494_a88cc50dea13b5cc0b61f425f1904f32 The Spread of Behavior in an Online Social Network Experiment (By Damon Centola) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/329/5996/1194.full.pdf Determinants of consumer engagement in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) in social networking sites (By Shu-Chuan Chu, Yoojung Kim) http://j.pelet.free.fr/publications/reseausociauxnumeriques/Determinants_of_consumer_engagement_in_electronic_word-of-mouth_(eWOM)_in_social_networking_sites.pdf In regards to the SUCCEED research project, I have collected a couple papers which may help us design a system of incentives. The first paper, "Pride and Prejudice: The Human Side of Incentive Theory", proposes a model consistent with the theory that employees see their work as a source of self-realization and social esteem. The authors make two main points: first, that some people care about social esteem and secondly, people care more about the approval of people they approve of themselves. They find that principals can motivate agents if they create an altruistic impression. In "Incentives and Prosocial Behavior", the authors create a model incorporating four basic observations about incentives and pro-social behaviors: Material rewards and punishments can spoil the reputational value of good deeds, since it casts doubt on the motives of the agent Public praise or shame strengthens the signaling motive and generally leads to more pro-social behavior. However, "image rewards" can also lead people to suspect an agent to be acting out of appearances, which can lower the effectiveness of this type of reward. In a social context where there is more of a fear of stigma and lower intrinsic altruism, agents' actions will tend to be strategic complements, whereas in the opposite context, with more pursuit of distinction and higher intrinsic altruism, agents' actions will tend to be strategic substitutes. An optimal incentive scheme should correct for reputation-seeking so as to reduce "holier-than-thou" competition, which can make agents with less intrinsic altruism feel as if they have contributed less and thus be less likely to contribute later on. In "Group Lending", Ghatak develops a model to explain how joint liability lending schemes can potentially achieve higher repayment rates since these schemes make use of local information. Individuals have more information about people in their group and are more likely to choose members with a similar level of risk to themselves. Thus, risky borrowers face a higher effective cost of borrowing than if risky and safe borrowers were both mixed in the market and safer borrowers are attracted back to the market. "Spread of Behavior" shows that adoption of behaviors is spread more quickly in clustered networks than random networks. This is achieved by creating two different communities, one that had a clustered-lattice network and one with a random network, and then studying the adoption of heath behaviors in these two communities. "Determinates of consumer engagement in electronic word of mouth" studies what determines engagement in "word of mouth", the act of exchanging market information by consumers. Conducted an online survey where subjects rated themselves on three specific behaviors: opinion seeking, opinion gathering, and opinion passing, as well as characteristics of their connections such as tie strength, homophily, trust, normative influence, and informational influence. Overall, every characteristic was found to have a positive correlation except homophily, suggesting that, in online social networks, homophily limits peoples' social circles, which then affects information and idea sharing.