Sorting with shame in the laboratory

Ong, David (2008): Sorting with shame in the laboratory.

Abstract

Trust is indispensable to fiduciary fields (e.g., credit rating), where experts exercise wide discretion on others behalf. Can the shame from scandal sort trustworthy people out of a fiduciary field? I tested for the possibility in a charitable contribution game where subjects could be "ungenerous" when unobserved. After establishing that "generosity" required a contribution of more than $6, subjects were given the choice of contributing either $5 publicly or $0-$10 privately. Almost all control subjects chose to contribute privately less than $2. The majority of treatment subjects, after being told the prediction that they were unlikely to contribute more than $2, if they contributed privately, contributed $5 publicly. This suggests that the mere belief that a subject would exploit the greater discretion and unobservability of a fiduciary-like position can deter entry into such a position. Thus, scandals that create such a belief could repel shame-sensitive people from that field -- possibly to the detriment of the field and the economy as a whole. The shame externality of a scandals on private judgments may also been seen in politically correct speech after demonstrated racial prejudice of others.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: shame, psychological game theory, beliefs preferences, charitable contributions game, fiduciary
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H4 - Publicly Provided Goods > H42 - Publicly Provided Private Goods; H - Public Economics > H4 - Publicly Provided Goods > H41 - Public Goods; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C9 - Design of Experiments > C91 - Laboratory, Individual Behavior; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C7 - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory > C72 - Noncooperative Games

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