Lecture 12: immorality Flashcards
Relation greed and immorality
the greedier people are the more acceptable they are of immoral behavior.
Frank & schulze on the relation between greed and corruption (2000)
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
greediness and economic students
psychology students were less greedy than economy and management studies.
(but this could be because of selection)
why do people decieve?
people lie as a means to reach a goal like avoiding punishment or embarrasment.
why do people not always lie?
- 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.
the economic psychology of insurance and insurance fraud
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
expected utility of commiting fraud
fraud = f(outcome-(pcaught * punishment))
Why do people think insurance fraud is acceptable
- 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.
risk pooling
sharing risks with others.
how do people think about insurance
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
profit of insurance companies
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)
different approaches to insurance
- bad investment without return-on investment
- insurance can buy peace of mind
the simple model of rational crime
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
utility model for immoral behavior
behavior = f(outcome - (Pcaught * punishment))
richard dawkins
wrote that we are born selfish and that our self-interest is visible in our behavior.
wallet study
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
possible explanations for the wallet study
- 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.
components of civic honesty
- economic payoff of keeping the wallet
- costs related to contacting the owner
- altruistic concern for the owner
- costs related to self-image as thief.
study that predicted civic honesty
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
What determines how much people lie?
- 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.
dice rolling study
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.
cross cultural study with dice rolling
- 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
titanic versus lisutania
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.
role of self control in thruth telling
- self control at a young age leads to self control in adulthood
- people lie more when they are mentally depleted and tired
does deliberation increase or decrease cheating?
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
language and lying
when people have to answer in another language they have to think longer, so they are more honest
