Erschienen in:CESifo Working Paper Series ; No. 6428
Umfang:
1 Online-Ressource (20 p)
Sprache:
Englisch
DOI:
10.2139/ssrn.2965964
Identifikator:
Entstehung:
Anmerkungen:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments April 10, 2017 erstellt
Beschreibung:
Numerous signaling models in economics assume image concerns. These take two forms, as relating either to social image or self-image. While empirical work has identified the behavioral importance of the former, little is known about the role of self-image concerns. We exogenously vary self-image concerns in manipulating self-directed attention and study the impact on moral behavior. The choice context in the experiment is whether subjects inflict a painful electric shock on another subject to receive a monetary payment. Three between-subjects conditions are studied. In the main treatment, subjects see their own face on the decision screen in a real-time video feed. In the two control conditions, subjects see either no video at all or a neutral video. We find that the exogenous increase in self-image concerns significantly reduces the fraction of subjects inflicting pain