Intermediation Reduces Punishment (and Reward)

This paper shows moral decision making is not well predicted by the overall fairness of an act but rather by the fairness of the consequences that follow directly. In laboratory experiments, thirdparty punishment for keeping money from a poorer player decreases when an intermediary actor is included...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAmerican economic journal. Microeconomics Vol. 3; no. 4; pp. 77 - 106
Main Author Coffman, Lucas C.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Pittsburgh American Economic Association 01.11.2011
Subjects
Blame
Cancer
Charitable giving
Charity
Decision making
Dictators
Donations
Economic models
Economic statistics
Economic theory
Experiment design
Experiments
Fairness
Laboratories
Microeconomics
Modeling
Moral judgment
Morality
Studies
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Summary:This paper shows moral decision making is not well predicted by the overall fairness of an act but rather by the fairness of the consequences that follow directly. In laboratory experiments, thirdparty punishment for keeping money from a poorer player decreases when an intermediary actor is included in the transaction. This is true for completely passive intermediaries, even though intermediation decreases the payout of the poorest player and hurts equity, and because intermediation distances the transgressor from the outcome. A separate study shows rewards of charitable giving decrease when the saliency of an intermediary is increased.
ISSN:1945-7669
1945-7685
DOI:10.1257/mic.3.4.77