scholarly journals Do Economists Punish Less?

Games ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Jonas Kaiser ◽  
Kasper Pedersen ◽  
Alexander Koch
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Cooperative Behavior ◽  
Social Dilemma ◽  
Dictator Game ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
The Public ◽  
Costly Punishment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economics Students

A number of studies discuss whether and how economists differ from other disciplines in the amount that they contribute to public goods. We view this debate as incomplete because it neglects the willingness to sanction non-cooperative behavior, which is crucial for maintaining social order and for sustaining the provision of public goods. We study the decision whether to engage in costly punishment of a free rider in a survey-based experiment with 1423 students from seven study areas in the social sciences, as well as medicine at Aarhus University, Denmark. Using a dictator game and a social dilemma game, that captures essential features of the public goods game, we replicate previous findings that economics students give significantly less than students from other disciplines. However, when subjects decide whether or not to punish a free rider, we find that economics students are just as likely to punish as students from other disciplines.

Prosociality Beyond Big Five Agreeableness and HEXACO Honesty-Humility: Is Openness/Intellect Associated With Cooperativeness in the Public Goods Game?

2021 ◽  
pp. 089020702110281
Author(s):  
Erin C. R. Lawn ◽  
Kun Zhao ◽  
Simon M. Laham ◽  
Luke D. Smillie
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Big Five ◽  
Cooperative Behavior ◽  
Dictator Game ◽  
Analytic Formula ◽  
Strongly Correlated ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
The Public ◽  
Charitable Behavior ◽  
The One

Who is cooperative? Although Big Five (B5) Agreeableness and HEXACO Honesty-Humility are correlates of charitable prosociality, distinctions between “charity” and “cooperation” suggest that additional traits could be associated with cooperative prosociality. Echoing prior theoretical and empirical indications that B5 Openness/Intellect may play a role in cooperation, Study 1 ( N = 119; exploratory) revealed a significant correlation between Openness/Intellect and cooperativeness in the one-shot Public Goods Game that did not generalize to charitableness in the Dictator Game. We therefore conducted three preregistered replications to discern the robustness of this Openness/Intellect–cooperativeness link. As expected, Openness/Intellect showed no consistent correlation with charitable behavior. Surprisingly, the predicted correlation between Openness/Intellect and cooperative behavior was also inconsistent, partially replicating in Study 3 ( N = 304) but not Studies 2 or 4 ( Ns = 131; 552). Across our replications, cooperative behavior was most strongly correlated with Honesty-Humility (internal meta-analytic [Formula: see text] = .15, p = .005). The correlation between Openness/Intellect and cooperative behavior across our replications was significant and identical in magnitude to that between Agreeableness and cooperative behavior, though this effect-size was weak (internal meta-analytic [Formula: see text] = .08, p < .001). We therefore conclude that Openness/Intellect is a nonnull but very modest correlate of cooperativeness.

Arguments for a Duty to Vote

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Civic Virtue ◽  
Hard Work ◽  
The Public ◽  
Free Ride ◽  
Causal Responsibility ◽  
Good Government

This chapter outlines three arguments on behalf of a duty to vote: the Agency Argument, the Public Goods Argument, and the Civic Virtue Argument. The Agency Argument held that citizens should bear some causal responsibility in helping to produce and maintain a just social order with adequate levels of welfare. The Agency Argument asserts that voting is necessary to do this. The Public Goods Argument holds that nonvoters unfairly free-ride on the provision of good governance. Failing to vote is like failing to pay taxes—it places a differential burden on others who do the hard work of providing good government. Meanwhile, the Civic Virtue Argument holds that voting is an essential way to exercise civic virtue, and civic virtue is an important moral virtue.

Institutions as Fields of Action

2018 ◽  
pp. 25-42
Author(s):  
Albert W. Dzur
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
The Social

Institutions shape how citizens think about the social problems they handle, repelling public awareness and involvement by performing tasks in ways that neutralize the citizen’s role. Democratic professionals seek to change this dynamic by building access points and infusing citizen agency at critical junctures throughout major public institutions. The kind of citizen–professional collaborations democratic professionals aim to foster directly address the kinds of counter-democratic tendencies that reinforce callousness and make social problems difficult to handle. The motivations of democratic professionals can be understood through the theory of participatory democracy, which draws attention to the hazards representative governments create by thinking and acting for citizens. Participatory democrats acknowledge the difficulties of fostering civic agency in modernity and attempt to theorize how citizens can occupy a more active role in contemporary political culture and take up a civic responsibility for the public goods and social harms produced by their institutions.

Thinking About the Concept of Social Gender With a Film

2020 ◽  
pp. 228-247
Author(s):  
Berceste Gülçin Özdemir
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
The Public ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Social ◽  
Narrative Cinema ◽  
Feminist Film ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Public Sphere

The concept of social gender is an interdisciplinary matter of debate and is still questioned today. Making sense of this concept is understood by the ongoing codes in the social order. However, the fact that men are still positioned as dominating women in the contrast of the public sphere/private sphere prevents the making sense of the concept of gender. This study questions the concept of social gender through the female characters and male characters presented in the film Tersine Dünya (1993) within the framework of Judith Butler's thoughts regarding the notion of the subject. The thoughts of feminist film theorists also bring the strategies of representation of female characters up for discussion. Butler's thoughts and the discourses of feminist film theorists will enable both making sense of social gender and a more concrete understanding of the concept of the subject. The possibility of deconstruction of patriarchal codes by using classical narrative cinema conventions is also brought up for discussion in the examined film.

scholarly journals More paternalism in the regulation of consumer financial investments? Private sector duties and public goods analysis

Legal Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Iris H-Y Chiu
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Consumer Credit ◽  
Financial Health ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Point Of Sale ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Financial Investments ◽  
Retail Investors ◽  
The Uk

Abstract Paternalistic forms of regulation for the retail investment market have been gradual and restrained, even though significant gaps exist between investors’ needs and market-based provision. As ordinary citizens reckon with a variety of savings needs and become financial citizens responsible for their own financial welfare provision, financial health is not merely an issue of individual fortunes but a social need. Adverse financial welfare consequences can at scale become a social issue, as is reflected in the social demands and critique entailing from the collapse of London and Capital Finance in the UK. The need for more regulatory paternalism goes beyond preventing mis-selling, and the outworking of welfare beyond point-of-sale remains relatively unconsidered. Post-sale welfare is, however, increasingly recognised for consumer credit and is slower to catch on in relation to savings needs and investments. This paper advocates that the regulator should not remain ambivalent about the need for more paternalistic interventions. Paternalistic protection is not only about shifting more burdens to the industry but also about the provision of public goods where there are standardised baseline needs for retail investors. This paper unpacks the roles of both the public and private sectors in addressing retail investors’ financial welfare needs.

scholarly journals Effects of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic on Social Behaviours: From a Social Dilemma Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 312-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel, H. T. Ling ◽  
Christina Mee Chyong Ho
Keyword(s):  
Social Dilemma ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Negative Externalities ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Collective Interest ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policies And Measures ◽  
The Social ◽  
Global Impacts ◽  
The Government

The health crisis of the COVID-19 outbreak has global impacts on humanity and theeconomy. Such pandemic effects are believed to have influenced human behaviour; issues ofpanic buying (overbuying) and noncompliance among individuals are shown evident. However,the underlying understanding on such behaviours due to the pandemic remains unclear.Therefore, this perspective paper adopts the social dilemma theory and microeconomics conceptsto analyse and explain the effects of COVID-19 on social behavioural reactions. It attempts toaddress the questions of what and why are the behaviours of individuals shown during thecoronavirus pandemic and showcase how the theory is associated with current social phenomena.Real scenarios based on media reporting from the sociodemographic context of Malaysia,concerning the following issues; (i) competition over daily essentials; (ii) self-honesty ofindividuals; and (iii) adherence to government policies and measures enforcement (governance)were discussed. A conceptual framework was developed to illustrate interrelationships betweensocial dilemma concepts and the phenomena. In essence, due to fear, uncertainty and greed, selfinterestand opportunistic (defective/unethical) behaviours of most individuals prevailing oversocietal collective interest amid the pandemic have been prevalently observed in the aboveinstances, although a cooperative choice can eventually result in a better outcome for everyone.Not only do these non-cooperative behaviours of individuals create inconveniences,dissatisfactions and other forms of negative externalities, they also incentivise others to actselfishly, if no restrictions are imposed, that may eventually cause government interventionsfailures. This paper demonstrates the relevancy of the social dilemmas theory in betterunderstanding fundamental human behavioural reactions amid the health crisis and theimportance of incorporating the findings into government policymaking. Thesesociopsychological considerations help the government formulate holistic measures, namelystringent sanctions and monitoring enforcement, as well as incentivising cooperative andcompliant behaviours of the public, which then contribute to curbing the COVID-19 pandemicmore effectively.

Law and Prosocial Behavior

2014 ◽  
pp. 194-212
Author(s):  
Lynn Stout
Keyword(s):  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Ultimatum Game ◽  
Social Dilemma ◽  
Dictator Game ◽  
Homo Economicus ◽  
Empirical Reality ◽  
The Social ◽  
Experimental Games

This chapter examines the relevance of prosocial behavior to law. It begins by tracing the history of the homo economicus model of human behavior, its role in contemporary behavioral law and economics, and why the concept of utility does not solve the problem of the model. It then looks at the emergence of a behavioral economics approach to human behavior that incorporates the empirical reality of prosociality without undermining the predictive power of economic analysis. It also discusses the empirical methodology known as experimental gaming, focusing on the application of three experimental games—the social dilemma game, dictator game, and ultimatum game—to study when and how people will act prosocially. In particular, the article considers three basic lessons about human behavior offered by the social dilemma game, ultimatum game, and dictator game. In addition, it explores how prosocial behavior influences regulation, negligence rules, and contracting, along with corporate law. The chapter concludes by stressing the value of incorporating prosocial behavior into the analysis of legal and policy problems.

Sharing Money With Humans Versus Computers: On the Role of Honesty-Humility and (Non-)Social Preferences

2021 ◽  
pp. 194855062110556
Author(s):  
Yngwie Asbjørn Nielsen ◽  
Isabel Thielmann ◽  
Ingo Zettler ◽  
Stefan Pfattheicher
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Social Preferences ◽  
Dictator Game ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Economic Games ◽  
Social Game ◽  
The Social ◽  
As If

Does giving behavior in economic games reflect true prosocial preferences or is it due to confusion? Research showing that trait Honesty-Humility accounts for giving behavior suggests the former, whereas research showing that participants give money to a computer might suggest the latter. In three preregistered, well-powered studies, we examined the relation of Honesty-Humility with behavior in the Dictator Game (Study 1, N = 468) and Public Goods Game (Studies 2 and 3, each N = 313), while participants interacted either with humans (“social game”) or with a computer (“non-social game”). We found that (a) decisions in the non-social game predicted decisions in the social game, supporting the confusion hypothesis; (b) the effect of Honesty-Humility differed within and between games; and (b) participants who gave money to the computer reported acting as if they were playing with humans. Overall, the studies suggest that both prosocial preferences and confusion underlie giving behavior.

scholarly journals Penal reform in Africa: The case of prison chaplaincy

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham K. Akih ◽  
Yolanda Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Valuable Contribution ◽  
The Public ◽  
Attitudes And Practices ◽  
Penal Reform ◽  
Social Objective ◽  
The Social ◽  
Halfway Houses ◽  
Prison Ministry

Penal reform is a challenge across the world. In Africa, those who are incarcerated are especially vulnerable and often deprived of basic human rights. Prison conditions are generally dire, resources are limited, and at times undue force is used to control inmates. The public attitude towards offenders is also not encouraging. Reform efforts include finding alternative ways of sentencing such as community service, making use of halfway houses and reducing sentences. These efforts have not yet yielded the desired results. The four principles of retribution, deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation guide penal practice in Africa. Retribution and rehabilitation stand in tension. Deterrence and incapacitation aim at forcing inmates to conform to the social order. The article argues that prison chaplaincy can make a valuable contribution to restoring the dignity and humanity of those who are incarcerated. Chaplaincy can contribute to improving attitudes and practices in the penal system and society. In addition to the social objective of rehabilitation, prison ministry can, on a spiritual level, also facilitate repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation. The aim is the holistic restoration of human beings.

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