Reference point effects in antisocial preferences

Klaus Abbink, David Masclet () and Matthijs van Veelen

No 09-03, Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) from School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.

Abstract: We study antisocial preferences in simple money-burning tasks. A decision maker can choose whether or not to reduce another person's payoff at an own cost. We vary across tasks the initial endowment of the decider and the victim. We find that most conventional expectations are refuted: Subjects burn more when inequality is advantageous than when it is disadvantageous. Equitable distributions are particularly prone to destruction. These effects are reversed, however, when the equivalent tasks are framed as creation instead of destruction.

Keywords: other-regarding behaviour; social preferences; nastiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D03 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-12-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Reference Point Effects in Antisocial Preferences (2011)
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