Self-Licensing and Financial Rewards: Is Morality For Sale?

Sophie Clot (), Gilles Grolleau () and Lisette Ibanez
Additional contact information
Sophie Clot: LAMETA, UMR 1135, Montpellier Supagro

Economics Bulletin, 2013, vol. 33, issue 3, 2298-2306

Abstract: This paper studies the impact of financially rewarding good deeds on self-licensing. We run a between-subjects experiment comprised of an adapted dictator game preceded by paid and unpaid pro-environmental tasks. We find that prefacing the dictator game with an unpaid good deed seems to establish a 'moral rectitude' which licenses subsequent selfish behaviour, whereas a paid good deed dampens this effect. Interestingly, the nature of the initial task has more of an effect on the binary option (give vs. not give) than on the amount donated.

Keywords: Self licensing; financial rewards; pro-environmental behaviour; behavioural experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C9 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-09-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2013/Volume33/EB-13-V33-I3-P215.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-13-00385

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economics Bulletin from AccessEcon
Bibliographic data for series maintained by John P. Conley ().