Doing Bad to Look Good: Negative Consequences of Image Concerns on Pro-social Behavior

Ivan Soraperra, Anton Suvorov, Jeroen van de Ven () and Marie Claire Villeval

No 1926, Working Papers from Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon

Abstract: Several studies show that social image concerns stimulate pro-social behavior. We study a setting in which there is uncertainty about which action is pro-social. Then, the quest for a better social image can potentially con flict with genuinely pro-social behavior. This confl ict can induce \bad" behavior, where people lower both their own and others' material payoffs to preserve a good image. This setting is relevant for various types of credence goods. For example, recommending an inexpensive treatment reduces the expert's profits and may not satisfy the true needs of the client, but is generally good for the expert's image (as it signals the lack of greed). We test experimentally if people start to act bad in order to look good. We find that people care about their social image, but social image concerns alone do not induce them to act bad. That is, without future interactions, social image concerns do not lead to bad behavior. However, with future interactions, where building up a good image has instrumental value (reputational concerns), we do find evidence of bad behavior in the short run to secure higher earnings in the long run.

Keywords: Social image; credence goods; prosocial behavior; reputation; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D82 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-hpe and nep-ltv
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: Doing Bad to Look Good: Negative Consequences of Image Concerns on Prosocial Behavior (2019)
Working Paper: Doing bad to look good: Negative consequences of image concerns on pro-socal behavior (2019)
Working Paper: Doing Bad to Look Good: Negative Consequences of Image Concerns on Pro-social Behavior (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gat:wpaper:1926

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