We develop a theory of prosocial behavior that combines heterogeneity in individual altruism and greed with concerns for social reputation or self-respect. Rewards or punishments (whether material or imagerelated) create doubt about the true motive for which good deeds are performed and this “overjustification effect” can induce a partial or even net crowding out of prosocial behavior by extrinsic incentives. We also identify the settings that are conducive to multiple social norms and more generally those that make individual actions complements or substitutes, which we show depends on whether stigma or honor is (endogenously) the dominant reputational concern. Finally, we analyze the socially optimal level of incentives and how monopolistic or competitive sponsors depart from it. Sponsor competition is shown to potentially reduce social welfare.

/pdf/incentives-and-prosocial-behavior-tzz3wh6cov.pdf

Incentives and Prosocial Behavior

Dishonesty plays a large role in the economy. Causes for (dis)honest behavior seem to be based partially on external rewards, and partially on internal rewards. Here, we investigate how such external and internal rewards work in concert to produce (dis)honesty. We propose and test a theory of self-concept maintenance that allows people to engage to some level in dishonest behavior, thereby benefiting from external benefits of dishonesty, while maintaining their positive view about themselves in terms of being honest individuals. The results show that (1) given the opportunity to engage in beneficial dishonesty, people will engage in such behaviors; (2) the amount of dishonesty is largely insensitive to either the expected external benefits or the costs associated with the deceptive acts; (3) people know about their actions but do not update their self-concepts; (4) causing people to become more aware of their internal standards for honesty decreases their tendency for deception; and (5) increasing the "degrees of freedom" that people have to interpret their actions increases their tendency for deception. We suggest that dishonesty governed by self-concept maintenance is likely to be prevalent in the economy, and understanding it has important implications for designing effective methods to curb dishonesty.Former working paper titles:“(Dis)Honesty: A Combination of Internal and External Rewards” and "Almost Honest: Internal and External Motives for Honesty")

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1442827_code504062.pdf?abstractid=979648&mirid=1

The Dishonesty of Honest People: A Theory of Self-Concept Maintenance

Improving the reliability and efficiency of scientific research will increase the credibility of the published scientific literature and accelerate discovery. Here we argue for the adoption of measures to optimize key elements of the scientific process: methods, reporting and dissemination, reproducibility, evaluation and incentives. There is some evidence from both simulations and empirical studies supporting the likely effectiveness of these measures, but their broad adoption by researchers, institutions, funders and journals will require iterative evaluation and improvement. We discuss the goals of these measures, and how they can be implemented, in the hope that this will facilitate action toward improving the transparency, reproducibility and efficiency of scientific research.

/pdf/a-manifesto-for-reproducible-science-4muga1l76m.pdf

A manifesto for reproducible science

We build a theory of prosocial behavior that combines heterogeneity in individual altruism and greed with concerns for social reputation or self-respect. The presence of rewards or punishments creates doubt as to the true motive for which good deeds are performed, and this "overjustification effect" can result in a net crowding out of prosocial behavior by extrinsic incentives. The model also allows us to identify settings that are conducive to multiple social norms of behavior, and those where disclosing one's generosity may backfire. Finally, we analyze the equilibrium contracts offered by sponsors, including the level and confidentiality or publicity of incentives. Sponsor competition may cause rewards to bid down rather than up, and can even reduce social welfare by requiring agents to engage in inefficient sacrifices.

/pdf/incentives-and-prosocial-behavior-1fmfrk0247.pdf

People like to think of themselves as honest. However, dishonesty pays—and it often pays well. How do people resolve this tension? This research shows that people behave dishonestly enough to profit but honestly enough to delude themselves of their own integrity. A little bit of dishonesty gives a taste of profit without spoiling a positive self-view. Two mechanisms allow for such self-concept maintenance: inattention to moral standards and categorization malleability. Six experiments support the authors' theory of self-concept maintenance and offer practical applications for curbing dishonesty in everyday life.

/pdf/the-dishonesty-of-honest-people-a-theory-of-self-concept-18mg31d5w3.pdf

This paper explores whether generosity in experiments is truly evidence of concern for desirable social outcomes. We conduct an experiment using a binary version of the dictator game. We introduce several treatments in which subjects are able to leave the relationship between their actions and resulting outcomes uncertain, either to themselves or to another subject influenced by those actions, thus giving subjects the moral “wiggle room” to behave self-interestedly. We find significantly less generous behavior in these manipulations, relative to a baseline in which the relationship between actions and outcomes is transparent. We conclude that many subjects behave fairly in the baseline case mainly because they intrinsically dislike appearing unfair, either to themselves or others.

Exploiting moral wiggle room: experiments demonstrating an illusory preference for fairness

https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~danajd/exit.pdf

What you don’t know won’t hurt me: Costly (but quiet) exit in dictator games

-cal or professional interest clashes with financialself-interest, a situation that arises commonly inmedical practice. When physicians are remuner-atedforperformingspecifictestsandprocedures,theyfaceaconflictofinterestwhentheyalsorecommendthosesametestsandprocedures.Whentheyarepaidforreferralstoclini-caltrials,physiciansareintheconflictedpositionofdecid-ing whether their patients are appropriate for the studies.Performingindustry-supportedresearch,physiciansfaceanimplicit demand for a positive finding to obtain further fi-nancialsupport.And,whenpharmaceuticalcompaniescourthigh-volumeprescribers,writingprescriptionsbecomesanactnotonlywithfinancialandhealthconsequencesforpa-tients, but also with financial consequences for the physi-cian.Thislastsourceofconflictofinterestisthecentralfo-cus of this commentary.Indiscussionsofgiftsfromindustry,whetherinmedicaljournals, the media, or in political debates, it is possible toglimpse a common perspective. The biasing effect of ac-ceptinggiftsistreatedasamatterofdeliberatechoice.Theconventionalperspectiveonacceptinggiftsimpliesthatphy-sicianswhoarebiasedbytheprospectofpersonalgainsaredecidingtodosomethingunethical.Undoubtedly,thisper-spectivecontributestotheindignationwithwhichmanyphy-sicians respond when it is suggested that gifts create bias.Becausethebiasisseenasintentional,anallegationofbiasis an implicit accusation of impropriety.Many policies dealing with conflict of interest seempremisedonthisunderstanding of bias. For example, con-sider policies on gift size. The recent guidelines for indus-tryputforthbythePharmaceuticalResearchandManufac-turers of America

/pdf/a-social-science-perspective-on-gifts-to-physicians-from-3q0r6tusi1.pdf

A social science perspective on gifts to physicians from industry.

Justified ethicality: Observing desired counterfactuals modifies ethical perceptions and behavior

Transitivity of preferences is a fundamental principle shared by most major contemporary rational, prescriptive, and descriptive models of decision making. To have transitive preferences, a person, group, or society that prefers choice option x to y and y to z must prefer x to z. Any claim of empirical violations of transitivity by individual decision makers requires evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. We discuss why unambiguous evidence is currently lacking and how to clarify the issue. In counterpoint to Tversky's (1969) seminal "Intransitivity of Preferences," we reconsider his data as well as those from more than 20 other studies of intransitive human or animal decision makers. We challenge the standard operationalizations of transitive preferences and discuss pervasive methodological problems in the collection, modeling, and analysis of relevant empirical data. For example, violations of weak stochastic transitivity do not imply violations of transitivity of preference. Building on past multidisciplinary work, we use parsimonious mixture models, where the space of permissible preference states is the family of (transitive) strict linear orders. We show that the data from many of the available studies designed to elicit intransitive choice are consistent with transitive preferences.

Jason Dana

Papers

Exploiting moral wiggle room: experiments demonstrating an illusory preference for fairness

What you don’t know won’t hurt me: Costly (but quiet) exit in dictator games

A social science perspective on gifts to physicians from industry.

Justified ethicality: Observing desired counterfactuals modifies ethical perceptions and behavior

Transitivity of preferences.