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Behavioral Contagion of (Un)Ethical Behavior and the Role of Social Identity

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Behavioral Contagion of (Un)Ethical Behavior and the Role of Social Identity Munich Personal RePEc Archive On Peer Effects: Behavioral Contagion of (Un)Ethical Behavior and the Role of Social Identity Dimant, Eugen University of Pennsylvania, Behavioral Ethics Lab, Harvard University, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics 28 December 2015 Online at https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/68732/ MPRA Paper No. 68732, posted 10 Jan 2016 05:53 UTC ON PEER EFFECTS: BEHAVIORAL CONTAGION OF (UN)ETHICAL BEHAVIOR AND THE ROLE OF SOCIAL IDENTITY Eugen Dimant‡ University of Pennsylvania, Behavioral Ethics Lab Harvard University, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics Version: December 2015 ABSTRACT: Social interactions and the resulting peer effects loom large in both economic and social contexts. This is particularly true for the spillover of (un)ethical behavior in explaining how behavior and norms spread across individual people, neighborhoods, or even cultures. Although we understand and ob- serve the outcomes of such contagion effects, little is known about the drivers and the underlying mechanisms, especially with respect to the role of social identity with one’s peers and the (un)ethical- ity of behavior one is exposed to. We use a variant of a give-or-take dictator game to shed light on these aspects in a con-trolled laboratory setting. Our experiment contributes to the existing literature in two ways: first, using a novel approach of inducing social identification with one’s peers in the lab, our design allows us to analyze the spillover-effects of (un)ethical behavior under varied levels of social identification. Second, we study whether contagion of ethical behavior differs from contagion of un- ethical behavior. Our results suggest that a) unethical behavior is more contagious, and b) social iden- tification with one’s peers and not the (un)ethicality of observed behavior is the main driver of behav- ioral contagion. Our findings are particularly important from a policy perspective both in order to foster pro-social and mitigate deviant behavior. KEYWORDS: Conformity, Behavioral Contagion, Peer effects, Social Identity, Unethical Behavior JEL: D03; D73; D81 ‡ This is the full version of the paper with an extensive literature review published in my dissertation entitled ‘Economics of Corruption and Crime: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Behavioral Ethics’ (2015). This work has greatly benefited from con- versations with Edward Glaeser, Daniel Houser, Lawrence Katz, David Laibson, Ulrich Schmidt, and Wendelin Schnedler on the early version of the experimental design. I am particularly thankful for valuable input from Max Bazerman, Cristina Bic- chieri, Gary Bolton, Elena Katok, Judd Kessler, and Robert Kurzban during my visiting research positions at the Harvard Uni- versity, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Texas at Dallas, respectively. I also want to thank René Fahr, Uri Gneezy, Burkhard Hehenkamp, Rosemarie Nagel, Arno Riedl, and Tim Salmon as well as the participants at numerous work- shops and conferences for interesting discussions and helpful suggestions. Financial support by the German Research Foun- dation (DFG) through the SFB 901 at the University of Paderborn is gratefully acknowledged. Table of Contents 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 2. Background and Course of Investigation .................................................................. 6 3. The Conceptual Framework of Behavioral Adaptation ............................................. 11 3.1 The Mechanism of Social Interaction and Challenges of Measuring its Effects .......... 11 3.2 Where Relevant? Why Understanding Behavioral Adaptation Matters ..................... 16 3.3 What Do We Know? On Peers, Behavioral Adaptation, and Neighborhood Effects ... 18 4. Drivers of Behavioral Adaptation: An Interdisciplinary Perspective........................... 24 4.1 Concepts in Economics ............................................................................................. 25 4.1.1 Social Decisions and Social Distance .................................................................... 25 4.1.2 Image Related Concerns ....................................................................................... 26 4.1.3 Taste for Conformity ........................................................................................... 28 4.1.4 Imitation ............................................................................................................. 30 4.2 Concepts in (Social) Psychology ................................................................................ 31 4.2.1 Social Learning Theory......................................................................................... 31 4.2.2 Norms ................................................................................................................. 32 4.2.3 Psychological Closeness and Vicarious Dishonesty ............................................... 35 5. (Un)Ethical Behavior: The Role of Social Identity and Observed Ethicality ................. 36 5.1 Conceptual Introduction........................................................................................... 36 5.2 Theoretical Model .................................................................................................... 39 5.2.1 Symmetric Contagion .......................................................................................... 40 5.2.2 Asymmetric Contagion ........................................................................................ 43 6. The Experiment .................................................................................................... 44 6.1 Experimental Design and Procedure ......................................................................... 44 6.2 Hypotheses .............................................................................................................. 49 6.3 Results and Discussion ............................................................................................. 50 7. What Can We Learn From This: Policy Implications ................................................. 58 8. Conclusion and Outlook ........................................................................................ 61 9. Bibliography ........................................................................................................ 63 10. Appendix ............................................................................................................. 73 A: Data Overview, Robustness Checks, and Additional Results ...................................... 73 B: Social Identity Statements ........................................................................................ 81 C: Experimental Instructions......................................................................................... 82 D: Screenshots of Decision Screens……………………………………………………………………………...85 II 1. Introduction Individuals do not co-exist in pure isolation but interact within social contexts, or as the emi- nent Elliot Aronson (2011) emphasizes it in his book’s title: individuals are social animals. De- spite the long tradition in anthropology and sociology, economists have been rather negligent of the relevance of norms, values, and social influence of peers on one’s behavior for a long time. Fortunately, over the last two decades there has been a push in the economic discipline to expand our understanding of what comprises a more sophisticated individual decision maker by accounting for the individual’s identity, morals, and other-regarding concerns (cf. Rabin (1993), Fehr & Schmidt (1999), Akerlof & Kranton (2000), Bolton & Ockenfels (2000), Charness & Rabin (2002), Bénabou & Tirole (2011)). These approaches have enriched our un- derstanding by regarding social and economic decisions as a function of the respective social and economic environment and the relevance of one’s peers’ behavior. Recently, both economists and psychologists have started engaging in a promising dialogue on behavioral ethics and the drivers of (un)ethical behavior by bringing together classical and behavioral approaches (for a recent review see Irlenbusch & Villeval (2015)). A standard eco- nomic argument is the assumption of fixed preferences, translating into one’s conforming be- havior being the result of social conventions or norms. Conversely, psychologists, sociologists, and recently some economists, among others, have challenged this fundamental assumption, suggesting that behavioral adaptation is the result of converging preferences and fluid tastes. Bernheim & Exley (2015) refer to the former as belief mechanisms, and to the latter as prefer- ence mechanisms. Along these lines, scholars in economics and psychology have attempted to shed light on the mechanism of peer effects using both lab and field experiments (for an overview see Houser et al. (2012) and Lahno & Serra-Garcia (2015)). Exemplarily, peers are found to significantly affect individual judgment (Asch, 1951) and risk taking behavior such as credit decisions (Banerjee, et al., 2013), stock market participation (Shiller, 1984), investment decisions (Scharfstein & Stein, 1990), and littering behavior (Cialdini, et al., 1990). Peer effects are also at play in education (Sacerdote, 2001) and productivity at work (Falk & Ichino (2006), Mas & Moretti (2009)), and in the form of neighborhood effects (Case & Katz (1991), Katz, Kling & Liebman (2001), Kling, Ludwig & Katz (2005), Kling, Liebman & Katz (2007), Chetty, Hendren & Katz (2015)). 1
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