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Motivational Cherry Picking

Author

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  • Tobias Regner

    (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena, Germany)

  • Gerhard Riener

    (Friedrich Schiller University and Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena, Germany)

Abstract

We construct a simple three person trust game with one trustor and two trustees. The trustor has the possibility to either trust both trustees or none, while the trustees make their decisions either sequentially or simultaneously, depending on the treatment. When trustees play sequentially, follower trustees who are informed about the leader's choice are significantly less kind than in the simultaneous move treatment as well as the leader trustees. These findings can not be explained by models of inequity aversion, pure guilt aversion, or conformity. Instead, follower trustees cherry pick the motivation that serves them best. When the leader trustee played unkind, they tend to conform and play unkind, too. When the leader made a kind choice, followers seem to perceive the duty of reciprocating to the trustor as already fulfilled by the leader. While guilt works well as a motivational force in a dyadic situation, it gets alleviated easily when there is someone to shift responsibility to, like the leader in our three person game.

Suggested Citation

  • Tobias Regner & Gerhard Riener, 2011. "Motivational Cherry Picking," Jena Economics Research Papers 2011-029, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
  • Handle: RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2011-029
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    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Moral licensing & cherry-picking
      by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2012-10-26 18:32:44

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    1. M. Bigoni & S. Bortolotti & M. Casari & D. Gambetta, 2012. "Trustworthy by Convention," Working Papers wp827, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    2. Bigoni, Maria & Bortolotti, Stefania & Casari, Marco & Gambetta, Diego, 2013. "It takes two to cheat: An experiment on derived trust," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 129-146.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Team production; Trust; Principal Agent; Guilt; Guilt alleviation; Conformity; False consensus effect; Lab experiment; Cherry picking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • C79 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Other
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior

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