Wednesday6Mar 2019

ESI Brown Bag Lecture

David Dickinson - Using ethical dilemmas to predict antisocial choices with real payoff consequences: an experimental study

Wednesday, March 6, 2019 11:50 a.m. PST
2019-03-06 11:50 2019-03-06 12:50 America/Los_Angeles ESI Brown Bag Lecture Go to event listing for more details: https://events.chapman.edu/61791 WH 116 Wilkinson Hall 116 - ESI Classroom Dustin Tracy tracy@chapman.edu

Free to attend

WH 116

Wilkinson Hall 116 - ESI Classroom

Staff, Faculty, and Students

are invited to attend.

Abstract: Anti-social  behaviours are costly to organizations, and the ability to identify  predictors of such behaviours can be valuable. In this paper, we used a  within-subjects laboratory design to study choices in the well-known  (hypothetical) Trolley problem as well as in a real payoff money-burning  experiment that can inform our understanding of moral preferences and  antisocial behaviour.   Choices in both environments respond to incentives (i.e., the relative  price of the ethical decision). Trolley problem decisions are consistent  with previously known results—individuals prefer no action over action,  and they prefer to avoid direct over indirect responsibility when  negative consequences would be similar in either instance. In analyzing  the determinants of anti-social money burning, our data identify money  burning due to inequality aversion, but we also find evidence of pure  nastiness (burning money of others to increase one’s advantageous  inequality).  Importantly, we find that utilitarian behaviour in the  Trolley dilemma is not linked to antisocial money burning, which  contrasts with previous conclusions in the literature.  Nevertheless, we  observe that the willingness to commit more clearly ethically dubious  acts in the Trolley problem significantly predicts money burning and,  more specifically, nastiness. We conclude that choices in hypothetical  environments can predict consequential and inefficient antisocial  behaviours. 

 

You can contact the event organizer, Dustin Tracy at tracy@chapman.edu.

Edit contact information

Does something on this page need to be updated?