Temporal stability and psychological foundations of cooperation preferences

Stefan Volk (), Christian Thoeni () and Winfried Ruigrok ()
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Christian Thöni

No 1101, Economics Working Paper Series from University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science

Abstract: A core element of economic theory is the assumption of stable preferences. We test this assumption in public goods games by repeatedly eliciting cooperation preferences in a fixed subject pool over a period of five months. We find that cooperation preferences are very stable at the aggregate level, but less so at the individual level. Nevertheless, individual preferences are sufficiently stable to predict future behavior fairly accurately. Our results also provide evidence on the psychological foundations of cooperation preferences. The personality dimension 'Agreeableness' is closely related to both the type and the stability of cooperation preferences.

Keywords: Social preferences; preference stability; conditional cooperation; free riding; personality; Big-Five. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C91 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2011-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-gth, nep-hpe and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Temporal stability and psychological foundations of cooperation preferences (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:usg:econwp:2011:01

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