Exploring Image Motivation in Promise Keeping - An Experimental Investigation

This paper reports an experiment designed to investigate the role of image concerns in promise keeping. The task employed allows to shed light on the relevance of both social -image and self -image concerns. Whereas in the former case, behavior is expected to depend on how others perceive a given action, in the latter case what matters is how actions reflect on a decision-maker’s self -perception. We observe strong evidence of social-image concerns in treatments which feature ex-ante opportunities for promise exchange. Ruling out alternative explanations, our results are consistent with subjects exhibiting an aversion to being perceived as a promise breaker by others. Surprisingly, subjects seem not to anticipate social-image concerns to be present in others. Our test of self-image concerns yields a null result: there is no evidence suggesting that subjects in our experiment engaged in self-deception to evade their promise-induced commitments. This resilience can be interpreted as corroborating evidence of the strength of promises. Our results shed light on the conditions under which promises can be expected to facilitate successful relationships based on trust.