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School of Business, Economics and Law / Handelshögskolan vid Göteborgs universitet >
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Working papers >
Are Social Preferences Skin Deep? Dictators under Cognitive Load
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/2077/20768
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| Title: | Are Social Preferences Skin Deep? Dictators under Cognitive Load |
| Authors: | Hauge, Karen Evelyn
Brekke, Kjell Arne
Johansson, Lars-Olof
Johansson-Stenman, Olof
Svedsäter, Henrik |
| Issue Date: | 2009-07-03 |
| Publication type: | report |
| Series/Report no.: | Working Papers in Economics
371 |
| Keywords: | Social Preferences
experiments
dictator game
cognitive load |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of cognitive load in dictator games to test two conflicting views of
moral behavior. Are social preferences skin‐deep in the sense that they are the result of
humans’ cognitive r... moreeasoning while the natural instinct is selfish, or is rather the natural
instinct to share fairly while our cognitive capacities are able to adjust moral principles in a
self‐serving manner? Some previous studies in more complex settings give conflicting
answers, and to disentangle different possible mechanisms we use simple games. We study
both charitable giving and the behavior of dictators under high and low cognitive load,
where high cognitive load is assumed to reduce the impact of cognitive processes on
behavior. In the dictator game we use both a give frame, where the dictator is given an
amount and may share some or all of it to a partner, and a take frame, where dictators may
take from an amount initially allocated to the partner. The results from four different studies
indicate that the effect of cognitive load is small if at all existing. |
| ISSN: | 1403-2465 |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2077/20768 |
| Appears in Collections: | Working papers
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