The Pleasure of Being Nasty

Klaus Abbink and Abdolkarim Sadrieh

No 8037, FEMM Working Papers from Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management

Abstract: Many laboratory experiments show that people are often altruistic or care for fairness. We present data that reveal a darker side of human nature. We introduce the joy-of-destruction game. Two players each receive an endowment and simultaneously decide on how much of the other player’s endowment to destroy. Subjects play this game repeatedly. In one treatment, subjects can hide their destruction behind random destruction. In this treatment, money is destroyed in almost 40% of all decisions. We attribute this behavior to a visceral pleasure of being nasty. Under full information destruction is also observed, but rare. In this treatment, acts of destruction are followed by immediate retaliation.

Keywords: Spite; nastiness; money-burning; anti-social behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C90 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 7 pages
Date: 2008-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ger and nep-gth
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Journal Article: The pleasure of being nasty (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mag:wpaper:08037

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