Moral distance and moral motivations in dictator games

Arbeitspapier

We perform an experimenta linvestigation using a dictator game in which individuals must make a moral decision —to give or not to give an amount of money to poor people in the Third World. A questionnaire in which the subjects are asked about the reasons for their decision shows that, at least in this case, moral motivations carry a heavy weight in the decision: the majority of dictators give the money for reasons of a consequentialist nature. Based on the results presented here and of other analogous experiments, we conclude that dicator behavior can be understood in terms of moral distance rather than social distance and that it systematically deviates from the egoism assumption in economic models and game theory.

Show object

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Jena Economic Research Papers ; No. 2007,047

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Relation of Economics to Social Values ; Noncooperative Games ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual
• Subject: Dictator game ; moral distance ; moral motivations ; experimental economics ; Verhandlungstheorie ; Nichtkooperatives Spiel ; Spende ; Private Entwicklungshilfe ; Entscheidung ; Ethik ; Test

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Aguiar, Fernando ; Brañas-Garza, Pablo ; Miller, Luis M.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Max Planck Institute of Economics
• (where): Jena
• (when): 2007

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/25614