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Ashamed to be selfish

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Author Info

  • Dillenberger, David

    () (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania)

  • Sadowski, Philipp

    () (Department of Economics, Duke University)

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    Abstract

    We study a decision maker (DM) who has preferences over choice problems, which are sets of payoff-allocations between herself and a passive recipient. An example of such a set is the collection of possible allocations in the classic dictator game. The choice of an allocation from the set is observed by the recipient, whereas the choice of the set itself is not. Behaving selfishly under observation, in the sense of not choosing the normatively best allocation, inflicts shame on DM. We derive a representation that identifies DM's private ranking of allocations, her subjective norm, and shame. The normatively best allocation can be further characterized as the Nash solution of a bargaining game induced by the second-stage choice problem.

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    File URL: http://econtheory.org/ojs/index.php/te/article/viewFile/20120099/6156/204
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    Bibliographic Info

    Article provided by Econometric Society in its journal Theoretical Economics.

    Volume (Year): 7 (2012)
    Issue (Month): 1 (January)
    Pages:

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    Handle: RePEc:the:publsh:674

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    Web page: http://econtheory.org

    Related research

    Keywords: Shame; selfishness; subjective norm; dictator game; Nash bargaining solution;

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    References

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    1. Charness, Gary B & Rabin, Matthew, 2001. "Understanding Social Preferences With Simple Tests," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt0dc3k4m5, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    2. James C. Cox & Daniel Friedman & Vjollca Sadiraj, 2008. "Revealed Altruism," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(1), pages 31-69, 01.
    3. Burnham, Terence C., 2003. "Engineering altruism: a theoretical and experimental investigation of anonymity and gift giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 133-144, January.
    4. Frohlich, Norman & Oppenheimer, Joe & Bernard Moore, J., 2001. "Some doubts about measuring self-interest using dictator experiments: the costs of anonymity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 271-290, November.
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