Care and anger motives in social dilemmas

This paper provides evidence for the following novel insights: (1) People’s economic decisions depend on their psychological motives, which are shaped predictably by the social context. (2) In particular, the social context influences people’s other-regarding preferences, their beliefs and their per...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inTheory and decision Vol. 95; no. 2; pp. 273 - 308
Main Authors Ring, Patrick, Schütt, Christoph A., Snower, Dennis J.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Springer US 01.08.2023
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Altruism
Anger
Behavioral/Experimental Economics
Context
Cooperation
Decision making
Economic Theory/Quantitative Economics/Mathematical Methods
Economics
Economics and Finance
Finance
Game Theory
Insurance
Management
Motivation
Operations Research/Decision Theory
Optimism
Perceptions
Preferences
Priming
Social and Behav. Sciences
Social dilemmas
Social environment
Social interaction
Statistics for Business
Pro-social preferences
Norm violation
Priming
Motivation
Stability of preferences
Social dilemma
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Summary:This paper provides evidence for the following novel insights: (1) People’s economic decisions depend on their psychological motives, which are shaped predictably by the social context. (2) In particular, the social context influences people’s other-regarding preferences, their beliefs and their perceptions. (3) The influence of the social context on psychological motives can be measured experimentally by priming two antagonistic motives—care and anger—in one player towards another by means of an observance or a violation of a fairness norm. Using a mediation approach, we find that the care motive leads to higher levels of cooperation which are driven by more optimistic beliefs, a different perception of the game as well as by a shift towards more pro-social preferences.
ISSN:0040-5833
1573-7187
DOI:10.1007/s11238-022-09921-9