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Who's naughty? Who's nice? Experiments on whether pro-social workers are selected out of cutthroat business environments

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  • Hoffman, Mitchell
  • Morgan, John

Abstract

Levitt and List (2007) hypothesize that pro-social individuals will be selected out of cutthroat industries. To study this, we measure the pro-social preferences of individuals in two such industries, domain trading and online adult entertainment (pornography). Contrary to the selection hypothesis, we find that these individuals exhibit a high degree of pro-sociality. They exhibit more altruism, trust, trustworthiness, and honesty than the typical student subject. They also respond differently to shame-based incentives. We offer a theory of reverse selection that can rationalize these findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Hoffman, Mitchell & Morgan, John, 2015. "Who's naughty? Who's nice? Experiments on whether pro-social workers are selected out of cutthroat business environments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 173-187.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:109:y:2015:i:c:p:173-187
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2014.10.001
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    Cited by:

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    5. Mongoljin Batsaikhan & Louis Putterman, 2019. "An Honest Day's Pay: Cooperation among Entrepreneurs vs. Students, and Linkages to Real‐World Business Success," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(2), pages 478-502, October.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Selection hypothesis; Social preferences; Lying aversion; Shame aversion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis

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