When Foul Play Seems Fair: Exploring the Link between Just Deserts and Honesty

Fabio Galeotti, Reuben Kline and Raimondello Orsini
Additional contact information
Reuben Kline: SBU - Stony Brook University [SUNY] - SUNY - State University of New York
Raimondello Orsini: DAIS - Computer Science - University of Ca’ Foscari [Venice, Italy]

Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: The distributive justice norm of " just deserts " — i.e. the notion that one gets what one deserves — is an essential norm in a market society, and honesty is an important factor in economic and social exchange. We experimentally investigate the effect of violations of the distributive justice norm of " just deserts " on honesty in a setting where behaving dishonestly entails income redistribution. We find that the violation of the just deserts norm results in a greater propensity toward dishonesty. We then test a more general proposition that violations of just deserts induce dishonesty, even in cases where dishonesty does not have redistributive consequences. Our results confirm this proposition but only for cases in which the v iolation of just deserts also entails income inequality. Abstract The distributive justice norm of " just deserts " —i.e. the notion that one gets what

Keywords: Meritocracy; Equity; Dishonesty; Just Deserts; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-08-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-soc
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01579214v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01579214v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: When foul play seems fair: Exploring the link between just deserts and honesty (2017)
Working Paper: When Foul Play Seems Fair: Exploring the Link between Just Deserts and Honesty (2017)
Working Paper: When foul play seems fair: Exploring the link between just deserts and honesty (2017)
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:hal:wpaper:halshs-01579214

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().