Lecture 12: immorality

Question 1

Relation greed and immorality

Answer 1

the greedier people are the more acceptable they are of immoral behavior.

Question 2

Frank & schulze on the relation between greed and corruption (2000)

Answer 2

scenario where 200 euro’s dropped down the sink and they could hire a plumber to get it back
- greedy people were more likely to bribe than non-greedy
- greedy people accepted the bribe more often
- greedy people asked for more money

Question 3

greediness and economic students

Answer 3

psychology students were less greedy than economy and management studies.
(but this could be because of selection)

Question 4

why do people decieve?

Answer 4

people lie as a means to reach a goal like avoiding punishment or embarrasment.

Question 5

why do people not always lie?

Answer 5

• if people know you as a liar, they won’t trust you anymore and won’t want to work with you
• people want to see themselves as an honest person
• individuals usually try to strike a balance between the benefits that an egoistic lie brings and the maintenance of a positive self-concept.

Question 6

the economic psychology of insurance and insurance fraud

Answer 6

people do certain things if they don’t trust the other
- you don’t tell a contractor you are insured
- insurance companies are scared you will become reckless if you are insured

Question 7

expected utility of commiting fraud

Answer 7

fraud = f(outcome-(pcaught * punishment))

Question 8

Why do people think insurance fraud is acceptable

Answer 8

• people don’t like insurance companies
• social norms (friends think it is acceptable)
• they had a rejected claim recently
• they have been paying for some time, but never claimed.

Question 9

risk pooling

Answer 9

sharing risks with others.

Question 10

how do people think about insurance

Answer 10

there is a positive correlation between how much people felt their money was wasted and how acceptable fraud was.

people don’t unnderstand insurance

study with wasted money and fraud

Question 11

profit of insurance companies

Answer 11

people think 35% of a company’s income was profit, but in reality it was about 7,4% at the time.
- people are tolerable towards insurance fraud, because they don’t really understand what it is. (both insurance and insurance fraud)

Question 12

different approaches to insurance

Answer 12

• bad investment without return-on investment
• insurance can buy peace of mind

Question 13

the simple model of rational crime

Answer 13

proposes criminals respond to the risk and costs of punishment. we seek our own advantages.
we weigh the cost versus the benefits of an act comparing the possible positive and negative outcomes

economic man and crime and immorality

by Gary Becker

Question 14

utility model for immoral behavior

Answer 14

behavior = f(outcome - (Pcaught * punishment))

Question 15

richard dawkins

Answer 15

wrote that we are born selfish and that our self-interest is visible in our behavior.

Question 16

wallet study

Answer 16

wallets with or without money were put out.
hypotheses was that people would take the money without reporting the wallet
- in reality the wallets with money in them were reported more often

about self-interested immoral behavior

Question 17

possible explanations for the wallet study

Answer 17

• the amount of money
• legal penalty (made no difference)
• returned walltes with or without cash (more than 98% of the money was returned)
• finders fee (no different expectation)

all of these could not explain the difference between the money and no money condition.

Question 18

components of civic honesty

Answer 18

• economic payoff of keeping the wallet
• costs related to contacting the owner
• altruistic concern for the owner
• costs related to self-image as thief.

Question 19

study that predicted civic honesty

Answer 19

conditions: nomoney, money, bigmoney.
actual reporting rate, predicted report rate in expert en non expert sample.

• higher civic honesty with greater economic incentive to cheat (the more money the more honest)
• general public (and experts) incorrectly predicts civic honesty
• interplay of altruism and self-image concerns
• country’s wealth, geographic conditions, cultural values extending above one’s in group relate positively to honesty.

Cohn, Marcel, Tannebaum & Zund, 2019

Question 20

What determines how much people lie?

Answer 20

• Gary Becker (1968): lying is a function of the likelihood to get caught and the punishment that follows
• Shalvi et al., (2011): lying is a function of serving self-interest while maintaining an honest self-concept.

Question 21

dice rolling study

Answer 21

people had to write down what number they rolled to get the amount of money associated with it. they could lie, because the researcher would not know what number they wrote.
- the higher numbers were reported more frequently
- when they had to roll multiple times they thought writing down the highest number was justifiable

shuffling facts feels legitimate, inventing facts does not.

Question 22

cross cultural study with dice rolling

Answer 22

• growing up in country with a lot of fraud creates a culture where people behave more dishonest
• collectivist societies are more honest within their own group, but can be more dishonest towards the outgroup

Question 23

titanic versus lisutania

Answer 23

both had 30% suffers but differed in who these were. titanic were women and children, lusitania where young and strong men and women.
difference was sink time
social impulse is every man for themselves
social and altruistic factors only come into play when there is time.

Question 24

role of self control in thruth telling

Answer 24

• self control at a young age leads to self control in adulthood
• people lie more when they are mentally depleted and tired

Question 25

does deliberation increase or decrease cheating?

Answer 25

dual process approach
- intuitive reaction is self interest (dishonesty)
- deliberative reaction is to calibrate what feels justified

if people have more time they are more honest

Question 26

language and lying

Answer 26

when people have to answer in another language they have to think longer, so they are more honest