{"title":"Contagion of Pro- and Anti-Social Behavior Among Peers and the Role of Social Proximity","authors":"Eugen Dimant","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3286770","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3286770","url":null,"abstract":"This paper uses a novel experimental design to study the contagion of pro- and anti-social behavior and the role of social proximity among peers. Across systematic variations thereof, we find that anti-social behavior is generally more contagious than pro-social behavior. Surprisingly, we also find that social proximity amplifies the contagion of anti-social behavior more strongly than the contagion of pro-social behavior. Anti-social individuals are also most susceptible to the behavioral contagion of other anti-social peers. These findings paired with the methodological contribution inform the design of effective norm-based policy interventions directed at facilitating pro-social behavior and reducing anti-social behavior in social and economic environments.","PeriodicalId":113084,"journal":{"name":"Law & Prosociality eJournal","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128775941","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dimensions of Altruism: Do Evaluations of Prosocial Behavior Track Social Good or Personal Sacrifice?","authors":"S. Johnson","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3277444","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3277444","url":null,"abstract":"Do we praise altruistic acts because they produce social benefits or because they entail a personal sacrifice? Across five studies, we find that people mainly rely on personal cost rather than social benefit when evaluating prosocial actors. This occurs because sacrifice, but not benefit, is taken as a signal of moral character and an input to reputational judgments (Studies 1 and 2). We tested three possible boundary conditions, finding that the effects are similar for actions that benefit the in-group versus the out-group (Study 3), but that people do account for social effectiveness when evaluating donations of time (Study 4) and when high-cost but ineffective acts are pitted directly against low-cost but effective acts in joint evaluation (Study 5). We argue that these results have far-reaching implications for the psychology and philosophy of altruism, as well as practical import for charitable giving, particularly the effective altruism movement.","PeriodicalId":113084,"journal":{"name":"Law & Prosociality eJournal","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127927428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Do Prisoners Solve Their Dilemma? An Experiment","authors":"T. Chmura, C. Engel, Markus Englerth","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2698196","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2698196","url":null,"abstract":"How do actual prisoners solve their proverbial dilemma? In a lab experiment, conducted in a German prison for male juvenile offenders, we find that prisoners are no less cooperative than students in a symmetric two-person prisoner’s dilemma. Using data from post-experimental tests, we explain this behavior with efficiency seeking, while our data do not support that choices are caused by inequity aversion.","PeriodicalId":113084,"journal":{"name":"Law & Prosociality eJournal","volume":"159 5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116212596","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Behavioral Approach to Law: An Emerging Discipline","authors":"Kalpana Tyagi","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2586005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2586005","url":null,"abstract":"The Chicago school argues that irrationality is the anti-thesis of rational markets. Simply put, a free market is a rational market. The behavioral economics on the other hand questions and successfully challenges this underlying assumption of rationality. It argues that man is not as rational as believed to be, on the contrary, s/he displays bounded rationality, bounded will power and bounded selfishness in real world scenarios. It tries to seek the rationale for such a rationality being bounded. Does this mean that humans are not innately as selfish as predicted? What are the constraints on this selfishness and rationality? But an equally important question is does the Behavioral approach provide a vivid representation of how the matrix of human response emerges in the backdrop of bounded rationality and thereby provide superior understanding of the firm and consumer behaviour. The present chapter deliberates on some of these case with examples of corporate context such as mergers and acquisitions, and availability cascade and formation of public opinion.","PeriodicalId":113084,"journal":{"name":"Law & Prosociality eJournal","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116802181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What Does 'Clean' Really Mean? The Implicit Framing of Decontextualized Experiments","authors":"C. Engel, David G. Rand","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2317896","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2317896","url":null,"abstract":"It is standard in experimental economics to use decontextualized designs where payoff structures are presented using neutral language. Here we show that cooperation in such a neutrally framed Prisoner’s Dilemma is equivalent to a PD framed as contributing to a cooperative endeavour. Conversely, there is substantially less cooperation in a PD framed as a competition. We conclude that in a decontextualized context, our participants by default project a cooperative frame onto the payoff structure.","PeriodicalId":113084,"journal":{"name":"Law & Prosociality eJournal","volume":"313 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134188363","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Martin A. Leroch, Carlo Reggiani, G. Rossini, Eugenio Zucchelli
{"title":"Religious Attitudes and Home Bias: Theory and Evidence from a Pilot Study","authors":"Martin A. Leroch, Carlo Reggiani, G. Rossini, Eugenio Zucchelli","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2005134","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2005134","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the relationship between religion and home bias. We propose a simple theoretical framework that suggests that countries interacting via their representative individuals might show a certain degree of religion-driven international altruism that in turn affects trade. We test these predictions exploiting data from a survey on religious attitudes and individuals' preferences over consumption of home-produced versus foreign goods that we designed and carried out in 15 different countries. We find evidence that religious openness and home bias are negatively correlated. This appears to provide some support to the hypothesis that religious openness, through trust and altruism, may have a pro-trade effect.","PeriodicalId":113084,"journal":{"name":"Law & Prosociality eJournal","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124518451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Naïve and Capricious: Stumbling into the Ring of Self-Control Conflict","authors":"K. O. R. Myrseth, C. Wollbrant","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1921203","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1921203","url":null,"abstract":"We model self-control conflict as a stochastic struggle of an agent against a visceral influence, which impels the agent to act sub-optimally. The agent holds costly pre-commitment technology to avoid the conflict altogether and may decide whether to procure pre-commitment or to confront the visceral influence. We examine naive expectations for the strength of the visceral influence; underestimating the visceral influence may lead the agent to exaggerate the expected utility of resisting temptation, and so mistakenly forego pre-commitment. Our analysis reveals conditions under which higher willpower – and lower visceral influence – reduces welfare. We further demonstrate that lowering risk aversion could reduce welfare. The aforementioned results call into question certain policy measures aimed at helping people improve their own behavior.","PeriodicalId":113084,"journal":{"name":"Law & Prosociality eJournal","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114614876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Trust, Perceptions of Corruption, and Demand for Regulation: Evidence from Post-Socialist Countries","authors":"Valentina Dimitrova-Grajzl, Peter Grajzl, A. Guse","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1849224","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1849224","url":null,"abstract":"While the tradeoff between market failure and government failure has been explored both theoretically and in practical policy design, the question of whether this trade-off appears in the calculus of citizens’ demands for government regulation remains underexplored. We first clarify the channels through which concerns for market failure, as proxied by trust in market participants, and concerns for government failure, as proxied by perceptions of corruption, jointly affect individuals’ demand for government regulation. We then investigate these effects empirically, using data from post-socialist countries. Our analysis confirms the previously established result that trust has a negative effect on demand for regulation. Perceived corruption, however, affects demand for regulation primarily via a negative interaction effect with trust. Our findings suggest that, in post-socialist countries, both concerns for market failure and concerns for government failure are indeed in citizens’ minds and that concerns about the anticipated ‘grabbing-hand’ effect from government involvement are particularly salient.","PeriodicalId":113084,"journal":{"name":"Law & Prosociality eJournal","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114908306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Human Capital in the Creation of Social Capital: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets","authors":"Garett Jones, John V. C. Nye","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1875198","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1875198","url":null,"abstract":"We provide evidence that individuals selected from societies with high human capital are more likely to cooperate when placed in an environment comparable to the state of nature: The world of New York City diplomatic parking. National average IQ, a robust predictor of economic growth, is found to be a robust (negative) predictor of the number of unpaid parking tickets issued to a country's diplomatic delegation at the United Nations. Average years of education have a similarly strong relationship with civil behavior. Results hold after controlling for GDP per capita and corruption in the diplomat's home-country. We integrate this result into the experimental game theory literature on cognitive skills and pro-social behavior.","PeriodicalId":113084,"journal":{"name":"Law & Prosociality eJournal","volume":"117 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131988512","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Group Identity and Relation-Specific Investment: An Experimental Investigation","authors":"H. Morita, Maroš Servátka","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1743882","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1743882","url":null,"abstract":"The hold-up problem has played a central role in the study of firm boundaries that originated with the pathbreaking essay by Coase (1937). This paper studies a previously unexplored mechanism through which integration could resolve the hold-up problem. Based on Tajfel and Turner’s (1979) social identification theory, we conjecture that team membership increases the degree of altruism towards another team member, and this in turn helps resolving the hold-up problem. We test this conjecture in a laboratory experiment. Our subjects are randomly divided into two teams and given their respective team uniforms to wear. In Task 1 they answer two trivia questions and can use a chat program to help their team members. In Task 2 the subjects play a standard hold-up game with a member of their own team (representing integration) or with a member of the other team (non-integration). We find that team membership significantly increases the investment rate as well as the share of the surplus offered back to the investor and thus mitigates the hold-up problem.","PeriodicalId":113084,"journal":{"name":"Law & Prosociality eJournal","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129894435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}