IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/theord/v85y2018i3d10.1007_s11238-018-9668-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Moral judgments, gender, and antisocial preferences: an experimental study

Author

Listed:
  • Juergen Bracht

    (University of Aberdeen Business School)

  • Adam Zylbersztejn

    (Univ Lyon, Université Lumière Lyon 2)

Abstract

We study questionnaire responses to situations in which sacrificing one life may save many other lives. We demonstrate gender differences in moral judgments: males are more supportive of the sacrifice than females. We investigate a source of the endorsement of the sacrifice: antisocial preferences. First, we measure individual proneness to spiteful behavior, using an experimental game with monetary stakes. We demonstrate that spitefulness can be sizable—a fifth of our participants behave spitefully—but it is not associated with gender. Second, we find that gender is consistently associated with responses even when we account for individual differences in the propensity to spitefulness.

Suggested Citation

  • Juergen Bracht & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2018. "Moral judgments, gender, and antisocial preferences: an experimental study," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 85(3), pages 389-406, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:theord:v:85:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s11238-018-9668-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s11238-018-9668-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11238-018-9668-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11238-018-9668-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Klaus Abbink & Benedikt Herrmann, 2011. "The Moral Costs Of Nastiness," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 49(2), pages 631-633, April.
    2. repec:cup:judgdm:v:6:y:2011:i:8:p:771-781 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Abbink, Klaus & Sadrieh, Abdolkarim, 2009. "The pleasure of being nasty," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 306-308, December.
    4. McKelvey, Richard D & Palfrey, Thomas R, 1992. "An Experimental Study of the Centipede Game," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(4), pages 803-836, July.
    5. Charness, Gary & Grosskopf, Brit, 2001. "Relative payoffs and happiness: an experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 301-328, July.
    6. Raymond Fisman & Shachar Kariv & Daniel Markovits, 2007. "Individual Preferences for Giving," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1858-1876, December.
    7. Klaus Abbink & David Masclet & Daniel Mirza, 2018. "Inequality and inter-group conflicts: experimental evidence," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 50(3), pages 387-423, March.
    8. Christoph Engel, 2011. "Dictator games: a meta study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(4), pages 583-610, November.
    9. Roth, Alvin E. & Vesna Prasnikar & Masahiro Okuno-Fujiwara & Shmuel Zamir, 1991. "Bargaining and Market Behavior in Jerusalem, Ljubljana, Pittsburgh, and Tokyo: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1068-1095, December.
    10. R. Mark Isaac & James M. Walker, 1988. "Group Size Effects in Public Goods Provision: The Voluntary Contributions Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(1), pages 179-199.
    11. Gold, Natalie & Pulford, Briony D. & Colman, Andrew M., 2015. "Do as I Say, Don’t Do as I Do: Differences in moral judgments do not translate into differences in decisions in real-life trolley problems," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 50-61.
    12. Timothy N. Cason & Vai-Lam Mui, 1998. "Social Influence in the Sequential Dictator Game," Monash Economics Working Papers archive-37, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    13. Erik O Kimbrough & J Philipp Reiss, 2012. "Measuring the Distribution of Spitefulness," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(8), pages 1-8, August.
    14. David K. Levine, 1998. "Modeling Altruism and Spitefulness in Experiment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(3), pages 593-622, July.
    15. Kerschbamer, Rudolf, 2015. "The geometry of distributional preferences and a non-parametric identification approach: The Equality Equivalence Test," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 85-103.
    16. repec:cup:judgdm:v:9:y:2014:i:1:p:65-76 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Daniel J. Zizzo & Andrew J. Oswald, 2001. "Are People Willing to Pay to Reduce Others'Incomes?," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 63-64, pages 39-65.
    18. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    19. Jordi Brandts & Gary Charness, 2011. "The strategy versus the direct-response method: a first survey of experimental comparisons," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(3), pages 375-398, September.
    20. Buchner, Susanne & Coricelli, Giorgio & Greiner, Ben, 2007. "Self-centered and other-regarding behavior in the solidarity game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 293-303, February.
    21. Bjorn Bartling & Ernst Fehr & Michel Andre Marechal & Daniel Schunk, 2009. "Egalitarianism and Competitiveness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 93-98, May.
    22. Naoko Nishimura & Timothy N. Cason & Tatsuyoshi Saijo & Yoshikazu Ikeda, 2011. "Spite and Reciprocity in Auctions," Games, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-47, September.
    23. repec:adr:anecst:y:2001:i:63-64:p:03 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. repec:cup:judgdm:v:5:y:2010:i:7:p:497-505 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. John A. List & Michael K. Price (ed.), 2013. "Handbook on Experimental Economics and the Environment," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12964.
    26. Erik O Kimbrough & J Philipp Reiss, 2012. "Measuring the Distribution of Spitefulness," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(8), pages 1-8, August.
    27. repec:cup:judgdm:v:6:y:2011:i:7:p:580-592 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Greiner, Ben, 2004. "An Online Recruitment System for Economic Experiments," MPRA Paper 13513, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dickinson, David L. & Masclet, David, 2019. "Using ethical dilemmas to predict antisocial choices with real payoff consequences: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 195-215.
    2. Sanjaya, Muhammad Ryan, 2023. "Antisocial behavior in experiments: What have we learned from the past two decades?," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 104-115.
    3. Alexandros Karakostas & Nhu Tran & Daniel John Zizzo, 2022. "Experimental Insights on Anti-Social Behavior: Two Meta-Analyses," Discussion Papers Series 658, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    4. García-Gallego, Aurora & Georgantzis, Nikolaos & Ruiz-Martos, María J., 2019. "The Heaven Dictator Game: Costless taking or giving," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 82(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sanjaya, Muhammad Ryan, 2023. "Antisocial behavior in experiments: What have we learned from the past two decades?," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 104-115.
    2. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Jaume García-Segarra & Alexander Ritschel, 2018. "The Big Robber Game," ECON - Working Papers 291, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    3. Brice Corgnet, 2018. "Rac(g)e Against the Machine? Social Incentives When Humans Meet Robots," Post-Print halshs-01984467, HAL.
    4. Alexandros Karakostas & Nhu Tran & Daniel John Zizzo, 2022. "Experimental Insights on Anti-Social Behavior: Two Meta-Analyses," Discussion Papers Series 658, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    5. Dickinson, David L. & Masclet, David & Peterle, Emmanuel, 2018. "Discrimination as favoritism: The private benefits and social costs of in-group favoritism in an experimental labor market," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 220-236.
    6. Gary Charness & David Masclet & Marie Claire Villeval, 2014. "The Dark Side of Competition for Status," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(1), pages 38-55, January.
    7. Erik O. Kimbrough & Alexander Vostroknutov, 2016. "Norms Make Preferences Social," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 608-638, June.
    8. Kesternich, Iris & Schumacher, Heiner & Winter, Joachim, 2015. "Professional norms and physician behavior: Homo oeconomicus or homo hippocraticus?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 1-11.
    9. Wladislaw Mill & John Morgan, 2022. "The cost of a divided America: an experimental study into destructive behavior," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 974-1001, June.
    10. Tan, Charmaine H.Y., 2020. "Overbidding and matching rules in second-price auctions: An experimental study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    11. Casal, Sandro & Güth, Werner & Jia, Mofei & Ploner, Matteo, 2012. "Would you mind if I get more? An experimental study of the envy game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 857-865.
    12. Brice Corgnet & Antonio M. Espin & Roberto Hernán-González, 2015. "The cognitive basis of social behavior : cognitive reflection overrides antisocial but not always prosocial motives," Post-Print hal-02311954, HAL.
    13. García-Gallego, Aurora & Georgantzis, Nikolaos & Ruiz-Martos, María J., 2019. "The Heaven Dictator Game: Costless taking or giving," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    14. Gary Charness & David Masclet & Marie Claire Villeval, 2014. "The Dark Side of Competition for Status (preprint)," Working Papers halshs-01090241, HAL.
    15. David Masclet & Clemens Puppe, 2015. "Introduction to the special issue “Experiments on conflicts and conflict resolution”," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 45(3), pages 479-488, October.
    16. Adrian Bruhin & Ernst Fehr & Daniel Schunk, 2019. "The many Faces of Human Sociality: Uncovering the Distribution and Stability of Social Preferences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 1025-1069.
    17. Gauriot, Romain & Heger, Stephanie A. & Slonim, Robert, 2020. "Altruism or diminishing marginal utility?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 24-48.
    18. Cason, Timothy N. & Mui, Vai-Lam, 2019. "Individual versus group choices of repeated game strategies: A strategy method approach," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 128-145.
    19. Volk, Stefan & Thöni, Christian & Ruigrok, Winfried, 2012. "Temporal stability and psychological foundations of cooperation preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 664-676.
    20. Balafoutas, Loukas & Kerschbamer, Rudolf & Sutter, Matthias, 2012. "Distributional preferences and competitive behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 125-135.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:theord:v:85:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s11238-018-9668-6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.