Does a veil of ignorance trigger the inner Kantian in us?
Description
Theoretical work shows that in social interactions Kantian (or universalization) concerns sometimes yield starkly different behavioral predictions than other-regarding motives. We hypothesize that in interactions with different roles, Kantian concerns are awakened through awareness of a possible role reversal. An experiment varying the salience of role uncertainty is conducted to test this hypothesis, and to disentangle Kantian concerns from other-regard. Participants decide whether to ``sell a lemon'' to a willing buyer (akin to a Dictator Game with taking), either behind the veil of ignorance as to the role distribution, or after simply being informed of their role as ``seller''. Based on the old hypothesis that markets promote selfishness, we also vary the wording used to describe decisions: we implement a Market frame and a Neutral frame. Role uncertainty salience does promote pro-social behaviors (in both frames), and selfish behavior is enhanced under the Market frame. Structural estimates of the preference parameters indicate that this is driven by a reduced other-regard under the Market frame, as moral concerns are of roughly the same intensity under both frames. A detailed description of the data is found in the uploaded README file.
Files
Steps to reproduce
We refer to the TSE Working Paper, n. 24-1531, found here: https://www.tse-fr.eu/publications/does-veil-ignorance-trigger-inner-kantian-us
Institutions
- Toulouse School of EconomicsOccitanie, Toulouse