Saving face through preference signaling and obligation avoidance

Matthew Chao and Jonathan Chapman

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2020, vol. 176, issue C, 569-581

Abstract: Many individuals act more selfishly in games when actions are hidden and their image is not at risk. However, some individuals may still desire to publicly signal reciprocity or other socially desired behavior in these contexts. These individuals may view hidden actions not as an opportunity to act selfishly, but rather as an obstacle to signaling preferences or type. Study 1 tests this by implementing a trust game where nature stochastically intervenes and allocates nothing in place of the second-mover's choice. When nature intervenes, many second-movers choose to sacrifice pay in order to truthfully signal that they attempted to allocate more, and that they therefore tried to reciprocate. Since signaling can be costly, Study 2 tests whether some individuals strategically reject interactions that could necessitate this type of signaling response. Players play two rounds of dictator games of increasing size, swapping roles in between. In treatments that allow it, many players reject allocations from their partner in the first round; they then act more selfishly as the dictator in the subsequent, higher-stakes round. Together, these results emphasize that the need to signal reciprocity or other socially desired behavior can influence how people engage with and respond to others in strategic contexts.

Keywords: Reciprocity; Fairness; Obligation; Social image; Preference signaling; Saving face (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C70 D91 M31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268120300998
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:jeborg:v:176:y:2020:i:c:p:569-581

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2020.03.033

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().