Preprint
Large Effects of Small Cues: Priming Selfish Economic Decisions
ArXiv.org
Cornell University
05/06/2024
DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2405.03893
Abstract
Many experimental studies report that economics students tend to act more
selfishly than students of other disciplines, a finding that received
widespread public and professional attention. Two main explanations that the
existing literature offers for the differences found in the behavior between
economists and noneconomists are the selection effect, and the indoctrination
effect. We offer an alternative, novel explanation. We argue that these
differences can be explained by differences in the interpretation of the
context. We test this hypothesis by conducting two social dilemma experiments
in the US and Israel with participants from both economics and non-economics
majors. In the experiments, participants face a tradeoff between profit
maximization, that is the market norm and workers welfare, that is the social
norm. We use priming to manipulate the cues that the participants receive
before they make their decision. We find that when participants receive cues
signaling that the decision has an economic context, both economics and
non-economics students tend to maximize profits. When the participants receive
cues emphasizing social norms, on the other hand, both economics and
non-economics students are less likely to maximize profits. We conclude that
some of the differences found between the decisions of economics and
non-economics students can be explained by contextual cues.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Large Effects of Small Cues: Priming Selfish Economic Decisions
- Creators
- Avichai SnirDudi LevyDian WangHaipeng Allan ChenDaniel Levy
- Resource Type
- Preprint
- Publication Details
- ArXiv.org
- DOI
- 10.48550/arxiv.2405.03893
- ISSN
- 2331-8422
- Publisher
- Cornell University; Ithaca, New York
- Language
- English
- Date posted
- 05/06/2024
- Academic Unit
- Marketing
- Record Identifier
- 9984623026502771
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