Conveniently Upset: Avoiding Altruism by Distorting Beliefs About Others’ Altruism

By R. Tella, Ricardo Perez-Truglia, Andres Babino, Mariano Sigman. 2015

162 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present results from a "corruption game" (a dictator game modified so that recipients can take a side payment in exchange for accepting a reduction in the overall size of the pie). Dictators (silently) treated to be able to take more of the recipient's tokens, took more of them. They were also more likely to believe that recipients had accepted side payments, even if there was a prize for accuracy. The results favor the hypothesis that people avoid altruistic actions by distorting beliefs about others' altruism. (JEL C72, D63, D64, D83)

Subfields: Demography, Safety Research, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3cae9861e7166866e0b2ee5dcf29e1e2c2b5a69d

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In Demography

In Safety Research

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

The Dynamics of Motivated Beliefs (2020, background): “, 2015; Di Tella et al., 2015; Falk, 2017; Grossman and van der Weele, forthcoming), and belief polarization (see, e.g., Kahan, 2013). In terms of the underlying reasons for motivated beliefs (“demand side” of self-deception), several motives have been suggested. Kőszegi (2006) and Brunnermeier and ”
Richer (and Holier) Than Thou? The Effect of Relative Income Improvements on Demand for Redistribution (2017, background): “For instance, self-serving behavior may lead individuals to lower their perceived rank in order to justify subsequent selfish behavior (Di Tella et al., 2015).”
The Economics of Motivated Beliefs (2015, unknown): “(2007), Di Tella et al. (2014) and Gneezy et al.”
Mindful Economics: The Production, Consumption, and Value of Beliefs (2016, methodology): “Di Tella et al. (2015) actually elicit the beliefs generated in the process using a variant of the “trust game.””