The sound of silence in prisoner's dilemma and dictator games

Communication increases contributions to public goods. Our experimental res ults indicate that communication is not always required. Silent identificat ion suffices to raise solidarity in prisoner's dilemma and dictator games. Increases in solidarity are not only due to expectations of reciprocity. Wh ile mutual identification induces individuals to converge to the social nor m, the spread of the distribution of choices increases with one-way identif ication and with communication. As others are no longer faceless entities, one-way identification decreases social distance, inducing interaction-spec ific solutions. Communication allows more information to be transferred and , therefore, more scope for abandoning the norms. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.