Status quo effects in fairness games: reciprocal responses to acts of commission versus acts of omission

Cox, James C.; Servátka, Maroš; Vadovič, Radovan

doi:10.1007/s10683-016-9477-0

Cited by 40 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Our results can also be explained by a model of revealed altruism42,43, according to which initial resource allocation affects perceptions of generosity of actions and hence subsequent reciprocity. Because in Provision cooperation is the result of an act of commission (contributing), while in Maintenance cooperation is achieved by omission (not withdrawing), cooperation in Provision is perceived as more generous than in Maintenance and thus Provision triggers stronger positive reciprocity than Maintenance.…”

mentioning

confidence: 52%

Reciprocity and the tragedies of maintaining and providing the commons

2017

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Social cooperation often requires collectively beneficial but individually costly restraint to maintain a public good1–4, or it needs costly generosity to create one1,5. Status quo effects6 predict that maintaining a public good is easier than providing a new one. Here we show experimentally and with simulations that even under identical incentives, low levels of cooperation (the ‘tragedy of the commons’2) are systematically more likely in Maintenance than Provision. Across three series of experiments, we find that strong and weak positive reciprocity, known to be fundamental tendencies underpinning human cooperation7–10, are substantially diminished under Maintenance compared to Provision. As we show in a fourth experiment, the opposite holds for negative reciprocity (‘punishment’). Our findings suggest that incentives to avoid the ‘tragedy of the commons’ need to contend with dilemma-specific reciprocity.

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confidence: 52%

Reciprocity and the tragedies of maintaining and providing the commons

2017

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“…For each (X,Y) dilemma, action is more likely in the INDIRECT Frame Secondly, both individuals and courts of law consider an act of omission to be a lesser "sin" than an act of commission that results in similar consequences (see Cox et al, 2017). This principle with respect to the Trolley dilemma has been labelled the "action principle".…”

Section: H1 (Trolley)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless, others have found it useful for studying various components of moral reasoning (e.g., Cushman et al, 2006;Greene et al, 2001;Greene et al, 2011), such as the identification of behavioural norms or highlighting that certain moral dilemmas preferentially engage emotional centers in a way that may be important in predicting choice (e.g., Greene et al, 2001). Still others have noted how the Trolley dilemma can highlight the difference between acts of omission versus commission (Spranca et al, 1991;Cox et al, 2017), which is a relevant distinction in courts of law. And, while past criticism of the Trolley dilemma may have seemed justified due to the unrealistic nature of the decision it presents, the relevance of the Trolley dilemma is at a higher level than perhaps ever before with the recent rise in ethical concerns surrounding self-driving vehicles.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using ethical dilemmas to predict antisocial choices with real payoff consequences: An experimental study

Dickinson

Masclet

2019

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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Antisocial behaviours are costly to organizations, and the ability to identify predictors of such behaviours can be valuable. In this paper, we used a within-subjects laboratory design to study choices in the well-known (hypothetical) Trolley problem as well as in a real payoff moneyburning experiment that can inform our understanding of moral preferences and antisocial behavior. Choices in both environments respond to incentives (i.e., the relative price of the ethical decision). Trolley problem decisions are consistent with previously known resultsindividuals prefer no action over action, and they prefer to avoid direct over indirect responsibility when negative consequences would be similar in either instance. In analyzing the determinants of antisocial money burning, our data identify money burning due to inequality aversion, but we also find evidence of pure nastiness (burning money of others to increase one's advantageous inequality). Importantly, we find that willingness to commit ethically dubious acts in the Trolley problem significantly predicts money burning and, more specifically, nastiness. We conclude that choices in hypothetical environments can predict consequential and inefficient antisocial behaviours. Also, utilitarian behaviour in the Trolley dilemma is not linked to antisocial money burning, which contrasts with conclusions in the literature.

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“…SeeDufwenberg and Gneezy (2000) andCox et al (2010) for similar results in a slightly different context. 7 A look at the distribution of contributions conditional on each continuation probability shows that it is not unimodal-which supports the use of a mixture model.…”

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confidence: 68%

Guilt averse or reciprocal? Looking at behavioral motivations in the trust game

Engler

Kerschbamer

2018

J Econ Sci Assoc

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For the trust game, recent models of belief-dependent motivations make opposite predictions regarding the correlation between back transfers and secondorder beliefs of the trustor: while reciprocity models predict a negative correlation, guilt-aversion models predict a positive one. This paper tests the hypothesis that the inconclusive results in the previous studies investigating the reaction of trustees to their beliefs are due to the fact that reciprocity and guilt aversion are behaviorally relevant for different subgroups and that their impact cancels out in the aggregate. We find little evidence in support of this hypothesis and conclude that type heterogeneity is unlikely to explain previous results.

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Status quo effects in fairness games: reciprocal responses to acts of commission versus acts of omission

Cited by 40 publications

References 41 publications

Reciprocity and the tragedies of maintaining and providing the commons

Reciprocity and the tragedies of maintaining and providing the commons

Using ethical dilemmas to predict antisocial choices with real payoff consequences: An experimental study

Guilt averse or reciprocal? Looking at behavioral motivations in the trust game

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