Revisiting kin and ethnic favoritism in the bribery experiment

We report a conceptual replication of Akbari et al. (2020), who study the impact of co-ethnicity and kinship on behavior in an experimental “bribery game”. In the game, player A can offer a bribe to B, who can help A by inefficiently transferring resources from passive third-party C. We replicate the finding that by varying the relatedness of A, B and C, we can substantially modulate the willingness of A to offer the bribe and the willingness of B to reciprocate the bribe by harming C. The findings are consistent with theories of kin altruism and ethnic favoritism.