Arbeitspapier

Self-Confidence and Reactions to Subjective Performance Evaluations

Subjective performance evaluations are commonly used to provide feedback and incentives to workers. However, such evaluations can generate significant disagreements and conflicts, the severity of which may be driven by many factors. In this paper we show that a workers’ level of self-confidence plays a central role in shaping reactions to subjective evaluations - overconfident agents engage in costly punishment when they receive evaluations below their own, but provide limited rewards to principals when evaluations exceed their own. In contrast, underconfident agents do not significantly react to evaluations below their own, but reward significantly evaluations exceeding their own. Our analysis exploits data from a principal-agent experiment run with a large sample of the Danish working age population, varying the financial consequences associated with the evaluations workers receive. In contrast to existing economic models of reciprocal behavior, reactions to evaluations are weakly related to the financial consequences of the evaluations. These results point towards a behavioral model of reciprocity that intertwines the desire to protect self-perceptions with over-/underconfidence.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 7325

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
Economics of Contract: Theory
Labor Contracts
Thema
subjective performance evaluations
self-confidence
reciprocity

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Bellemare, Charles
Sebald, Alexander
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
(wo)
Munich
(wann)
2018

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:42 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Bellemare, Charles
  • Sebald, Alexander
  • Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)

Entstanden

  • 2018

Ähnliche Objekte (12)