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This study is cleverly designed and found non-intuitive results (as measured by the study itself). Penultimate paragraph: > We conducted field experiments in 4
by js2 3y ago
This study is cleverly designed and found non-intuitive results (as measured by the study itself). Penultimate paragraph:
> We conducted field experiments in 40 countries to examine whether people act more dishonestly when they have a greater economic incentive to do so, and we found the opposite to be true. Citizens were more likely to return wallets that contained relatively larger amounts of money. This finding is robust across countries and institutions and holds even when economic incentives for dishonesty are substantial. Our results are consistent with theoretical models that incorporate altruism and self-image concerns, but they also suggest modification in that nonpecuniary motivations directly interact with the material benefits gained from dishonest behavior. When people stand to heavily profit from engaging in dishonest behavior, the desire to cheat increases but so do the psychological costs of viewing oneself as a thief—and sometimes the latter will dominate the former.
- didntcheck 3y agoComplete armchair analysis but I'd have thought this is definitely more about empathy than viewing oneself as a thief? I imagine a lot of people would look at a lost $1000 and think "I'd be devastated if I lost that!", and therefore put the effort into returning it. But I have to admit that if I found a wallet that only had $10 in, I wouldn't keep it but I would be a lot more lazy about returning it because "I can't really be arsed and he's probably not missing it much" In terms of "viewing oneself as a thief", I feel like I would do that even if I kept the $10 wallet, though I guess maybe I would feel like more of one the higher the amount is
- davetannenbaum 3y agoWe tested both ideas (altruism and theft aversion) in the paper. Short answer is we find evidence for both. For somewhat technical reasons, we think the "viewing oneself as a thief" component is probably necessary in order to observe higher return rates for wallets with money than wallets without money. But certainly both elements are at play.