Three essays on other regarding behavior

In this dissertation, I examine other regarding preferences and anti-social behavior using economic experiments that I conjecture share key elements to human interactions that would be difficult to study outside the lab. The first essay (chapter 2) studies the effectiveness of social ostracism as a means to increase contributions to a public good. We find that social ostracism does not facilitate greater contributions to a public good because socially ostracized group members further reduce their contributions upon being ostracized. The second essay (chapter 3) explores the crime of robbery and tests the role of individual intelligence, empathy, self-control, and risk aversion play in the commission of a crime. Generally, we find increases in the probability of punishment reduce the likelihood a "robber" will reject a "victims" offer---i.e. rob the victim. The third essay (chapter 4), investigates the functionality of rewards and punishments as means to educe accurate information from members of a group. We find no significant differences in the likelihood of truth telling behavior by subjects who know the information but however also find that subjects who do not know the information are more likely to truthfully reveal their ignorance in reward than in punishment. Chapter 5 concludes.