Reconciling pro-social versus selfish behavior: Evidence for the role of self-control

Peter Martinsson, Kristian Ove R. Myrseth and Conny Wollbrant
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Kristian Ove R. Myrseth: ESMT European School of Management and Technology

ESMT Research Working Papers from ESMT European School of Management and Technology

Abstract: We test the proposition that individuals may experience a self-control conflict between short-term temptation to be selfish and better judgment to act pro-socially. Using a dictator game and a public goods game, we manipulated the likelihood that individuals identified self-control conflict, and we measured their trait ability to implement self-control strategies. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that trait self-control exhibits a positive and significant correlation with pro-social behavior in the treatment that raises likelihood of conflict identification, but not in the treatment that reduces likelihood of conflict identification.

Keywords: self-control; pro-social behavior; altruism; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 D03 D64 D70 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 59 pages
Date: 2010-05-19, Revised 2010-07-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-ltv and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Judgment and Decision Making 7(3): 304-315.

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http://static.esmt.org/publications/workingpapers/ESMT-10-003_R1.pdf Revised version, 2010 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:esm:wpaper:esmt-10-003

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