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Moral Motive Selection in the Lying-Dictator Game

Barron, Kai ; Stüber, Robert and van Veldhuizen, Roel LU orcid (2022) In Working Papers
Abstract
An extensive literature documents that people are willing to sacrifice personal material gain to adhere to a moral motive. Yet, less is known about what happens when moral motives are in conflict. We hypothesize that individuals engage in what we term “motive selection,” namely adhering to the moral motive that aligns with their self-interest. We test this hypothesis using a laboratory experiment that induces a conflict between two of the most-studied moral motives: fairness and truth-telling. In line with our hypothesis, our results show that individuals prefer to adhere to the moral motive that is more aligned with their self-interest.
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Motivated reasoning, dictator game, lying game, motives, moral dilemmas, C91, D01, D63, D90
in
Working Papers
issue
2022:16
pages
63 pages
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
11918045-af41-49cb-9881-64d9aecb2e27
date added to LUP
2022-10-04 11:34:54
date last changed
2024-03-11 12:33:21
@misc{11918045-af41-49cb-9881-64d9aecb2e27,
  abstract     = {{An extensive literature documents that people are willing to sacrifice personal material gain to adhere to a moral motive. Yet, less is known about what happens when moral motives are in conflict. We hypothesize that individuals engage in what we term “motive selection,” namely adhering to the moral motive that aligns with their self-interest. We test this hypothesis using a laboratory experiment that induces a conflict between two of the most-studied moral motives: fairness and truth-telling. In line with our hypothesis, our results show that individuals prefer to adhere to the moral motive that is more aligned with their self-interest.}},
  author       = {{Barron, Kai and Stüber, Robert and van Veldhuizen, Roel}},
  keywords     = {{Motivated reasoning; dictator game; lying game; motives; moral dilemmas; C91; D01; D63; D90}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  number       = {{2022:16}},
  series       = {{Working Papers}},
  title        = {{Moral Motive Selection in the Lying-Dictator Game}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/173627974/WP22_16.pdf}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}