IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tiu/tiucen/5dca2a21-519f-4f5a-834d-b39b71b11298.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Guilt Aversion in Economics and Psychology

Author

Listed:
  • Bellemare, Charles
  • Sebald, A.
  • Suetens, Sigrid

    (Tilburg University, Center For Economic Research)

Abstract

We investigate whether the concept of guilt aversion in economics is related to the psychological characterization of the same phenomenon. For trust games and dictator games we report correlations between the guilt sensitivity measured within a framework of psychological games most common in economics and the guilt sensitivity measured using a questionnaire common in psychology (TOSCA-3). We find that the two measures correlate well and significantly in the two settings.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Bellemare, Charles & Sebald, A. & Suetens, Sigrid, 2019. "Guilt Aversion in Economics and Psychology," Discussion Paper 2019-017, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:tiu:tiucen:5dca2a21-519f-4f5a-834d-b39b71b11298
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repository.tilburguniversity.edu/bitstreams/fa90afc3-e266-41b5-a711-f38e03e960bf/download
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charness, Gary & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2003. "Promises & Partnership," Research Papers in Economics 2003:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    2. Charles Bellemare & Alexander Sebald & Martin Strobel, 2011. "Measuring the willingness to pay to avoid guilt: estimation using equilibrium and stated belief models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 437-453, April.
    3. Ellingsen, Tore & Johannesson, Magnus & Tjøtta, Sigve & Torsvik, Gaute, 2010. "Testing guilt aversion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 95-107, January.
    4. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    5. Khalmetski, Kiryl & Ockenfels, Axel & Werner, Peter, 2015. "Surprising gifts: Theory and laboratory evidence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 163-208.
    6. Charles Bellemare & Alexander Sebald & Sigrid Suetens, 2018. "Heterogeneous guilt sensitivities and incentive effects," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(2), pages 316-336, June.
    7. Giuseppe Attanasi & Pierpaolo Battigalli & Elena Manzoni & Rosemarie Nagel, 2013. "Disclosure of Belief-Dependent Preferences in a Trust Game," Working Papers 506, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    8. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Jürgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, 2011. "Individual Risk Attitudes: Measurement, Determinants, And Behavioral Consequences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 522-550, June.
    9. Bracht, Jürgen & Regner, Tobias, 2013. "Moral emotions and partnership," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 313-326.
    10. Battigalli, Pierpaolo & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2009. "Dynamic psychological games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 1-35, January.
    11. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David B. Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2017. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," NBER Working Papers 23943, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Gary Charness & Martin Dufwenberg, 2006. "Promises and Partnership," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1579-1601, November.
    13. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2023. "The Preference Survey Module: A Validated Instrument for Measuring Risk, Time, and Social Preferences," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(4), pages 1935-1950, April.
    14. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2018. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1645-1692.
    15. Christoph Vanberg, 2008. "Why Do People Keep Their Promises? An Experimental Test of Two Explanations -super-1," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(6), pages 1467-1480, November.
    16. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    17. Bellemare, Charles & Sebald, Alexander & Suetens, Sigrid, 2017. "A note on testing guilt aversion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 233-239.
    18. Charles Lindsey & Simon Sheather, 2010. "Variable selection in linear regression," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 10(4), pages 650-669, December.
    19. Geanakoplos, John & Pearce, David & Stacchetti, Ennio, 1989. "Psychological games and sequential rationality," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 60-79, March.
    20. Pierpaolo Battigalli & Martin Dufwenberg, 2007. "Guilt in Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 170-176, May.
    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. Abel, Martin & Burger, Rulof, 2022. "Choice over Payment Schemes and Worker Effort," IZA Discussion Papers 15769, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Giovanni Di Bartolomeo & Martin Dufwenberg & Stefano Papa & Laura Razzolini, 2024. "Guilt aversion and moral commitment: Eve versus Adam," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 578-594, December.
    3. Attanasi, Giuseppe & Rimbaud, Claire & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2023. "Guilt aversion in (new) games: Does partners' payoff vulnerability matter?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 690-717.
    4. Dhami, Sanjit & Wei, Mengxing & al-Nowaihi, Ali, 2023. "Classical and belief-based gift exchange models: Theory and evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 171-196.
    5. Haucap, Justus & Heldman, Christina & Rau, Holger A., 2024. "Gender and cooperation in the presence of negative externalities," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 148-169.
    6. Giuseppe Attanasi & Claire Rimbaud & Marie-Claire Villeval, 2020. "Guilt Aversion in (New) Games: the Role of Vulnerability," GREDEG Working Papers 2020-15, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    7. Alger, Ingela & Gavrilets, Sergey & Durkee, Patrick, 2024. "Proximate and ultimate drivers of norms and norm change," IAST Working Papers 24-163, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    8. repec:hal:wpaper:halshs-03620418 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Peeters, Ronald & Vorsatz, Marc, 2021. "Simple guilt and cooperation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    10. Renaud Foucart & Jonathan H. W. Tan, 2024. "A test of loyalty," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 97(1), pages 109-137, August.
    11. Della Lena, Sebastiano & Manzoni, Elena & Panebianco, Fabrizio, 2023. "On the transmission of guilt aversion and the evolution of trust," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 765-793.
    12. Bruttel, Lisa & Eisenkopf, Gerald & Nithammer, Juri, 2025. "Pre-election communication in public good games with endogenous leaders," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    13. Hassan, Mazen & Amin, Engi & Mansour, Sarah & Voigt, Stefan, 2023. "Incentivizing cooperation against a norm of defection: Experimental Evidence from Egypt," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    14. Campbell, Sandy & Gneezy, Uri, 2024. "Smartphone use decreases trustworthiness of strangers," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    15. Riccardo Ghidoni & Matteo Ploner, 2021. "When do the expectations of others matter? Experimental evidence on distributional justice and guilt aversion," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 91(2), pages 189-234, September.
    16. Haucap, Justus & Heldman, Christina & Rau, Holger A., 2022. "Gender and collusion," DICE Discussion Papers 380, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    17. Yosuke Hashidate & Tetsuya Kawamura & Fabrice Le Lec & Yusuke Osaki & Benoît Tarroux, 2024. "Impure motivations in social preferences: Experimental evidence from menu choices," Working Papers 2406, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.

    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. Attanasi, Giuseppe & Rimbaud, Claire & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2023. "Guilt aversion in (new) games: Does partners' payoff vulnerability matter?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 690-717.
    2. Peeters, Ronald & Vorsatz, Marc, 2021. "Simple guilt and cooperation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    3. repec:hal:wpaper:halshs-03620418 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Attanasi, Giuseppe & Rimbaud, Claire & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2019. "Embezzlement and guilt aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 409-429.
    5. Giuseppe Attanasi & Claire Rimbaud & Marie-Claire Villeval, 2020. "Guilt Aversion in (New) Games: the Role of Vulnerability," GREDEG Working Papers 2020-15, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    6. Hauge, Karen Evelyn, 2016. "Generosity and guilt: The role of beliefs and moral standards of others," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 35-43.
    7. Cartwright, Edward, 2019. "A survey of belief-based guilt aversion in trust and dictator games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 430-444.
    8. Charles Bellemare & Alexander Sebald & Sigrid Suetens, 2018. "Heterogeneous guilt sensitivities and incentive effects," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(2), pages 316-336, June.
    9. Roman Inderst & Kiryl Khalmetski & Axel Ockenfels, 2019. "Sharing Guilt: How Better Access to Information May Backfire," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(7), pages 3322-3336, July.
    10. Woods, Daniel & Servátka, Maroš, 2016. "Testing psychological forward induction and the updating of beliefs in the lost wallet game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 116-125.
    11. Ederer, Florian & Stremitzer, Alexander, 2017. "Promises and expectations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 161-178.
    12. Khalmetski, Kiryl & Ockenfels, Axel & Werner, Peter, 2015. "Surprising gifts: Theory and laboratory evidence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 163-208.
    13. Bellemare, Charles & Sebald, Alexander & Suetens, Sigrid, 2017. "A note on testing guilt aversion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 233-239.
    14. Patel, Amrish & Smith, Alec, 2019. "Guilt and participation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 279-295.
    15. Loukas Balafoutas & Helena Fornwagner, 2017. "The limits of guilt," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(2), pages 137-148, December.
    16. Khalmetski, Kiryl, 2016. "Testing guilt aversion with an exogenous shift in beliefs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 110-119.
    17. Morell, Alexander, 2019. "The short arm of guilt – An experiment on group identity and guilt aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 332-345.
    18. Danilov, Anastasia & Khalmetski, Kiryl & Sliwka, Dirk, 2021. "Descriptive Norms and Guilt Aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 293-311.
    19. Di Bartolomeo, Giovanni & Dufwenberg, Martin & Papa, Stefano & Passarelli, Francesco, 2019. "Promises, expectations & causation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 137-146.
    20. Claire Rimbaud & Alice Soldà, 2024. "Avoiding the cost of your conscience: belief dependent preferences and information acquisition," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 27(3), pages 491-547, July.
    21. Yola Engler & Rudolf Kerschbamer & Lionel Page, 2018. "Guilt averse or reciprocal? Looking at behavioral motivations in the trust game," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 4(1), pages 1-14, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    guilt sensitivity; psychological game theory; TOSCA; laboratory experiment; guilt aversion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:tiu:tiucen:5dca2a21-519f-4f5a-834d-b39b71b11298. 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: Richard Broekman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://center.uvt.nl .

    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.