Expectations do not affect punishment

Expectations-based reference dependence has been shown to be important across a variety of contexts in Psychology and Economics. Do expectations play a role in moral judgment? The higher our beliefs are relative to an outcome, do we punish more harshly? This paper reports a series of experiments inv...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of the Economic Science Association Vol. 5; no. 2; pp. 182 - 196
Main Author Coffman, Lucas C.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Springer US 01.12.2019
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Behavioral/Experimental Economics
Economic Theory/Quantitative Economics/Mathematical Methods
Economics
Economics and Finance
Game Theory
Microeconomics
Operations Research/Decision Theory
Original Paper
Social and Behav. Sciences
Expectations
Punishment
D63
Reference dependence
Morality
A13
Experiments
C92
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Summary:Expectations-based reference dependence has been shown to be important across a variety of contexts in Psychology and Economics. Do expectations play a role in moral judgment? The higher our beliefs are relative to an outcome, do we punish more harshly? This paper reports a series of experiments investigating the hypothesis that expectations as reference points per se affect punishment. The experimental design varies the expectation the Punisher holds just before she learns what actually occurred. In tandem with the manipulation, expectations are shown to vary significantly and substantially. However, punishment does not respond to these exogenous changes in expectations. After 17 sessions, 295 Punishers, and six experimental setups, expectations are shown not to affect punishment in any systematic way.
ISSN:2199-6776
2199-6784
DOI:10.1007/s40881-019-00079-9