We experimentally investigate whether individuals strategically distort their beliefs about dominant norms. Embedded in the context of lying, we systematically vary both the nature of elicited beliefs (descriptive about what others do, or normative about what others approve of) and whether...

In this short note, we show investors one way to calculate ideal investment sizing by using two rules of thumb based on a simple outline of individual risk aversion. We illustrate these two heuristics, which are not widely appreciated, with thought experiments involving coin flips and ketchup &...

We study an optimal timing decision problem where an agent endowed with a risky investment opportunity trades the benefits of waiting for additional information against a potential loss in first-mover advantage. The players' clocks are de-synchronized in that they learn of the investment...

An extensive literature documents that people are willing to sacrifice personal material gain to adhere to a moral motive. Yet, less is known about what happens when moral motives are in conflict. We hypothesize that individuals engage in what we term “motive selection,” namely adhering to...

Although contests are recognized theoretically as a highly effective method of motivation, the competitive nature of contests may generate unintended negative effects on social interactions in more general settings beyond contests. Using a laboratory experiment of real effort tasks with...

We conduct an online donation dictator game experiment with over 1,300 participants, representative of the Japanese population, to investigate the relationship between the incentive scheme and prosocial behavior by systematically varying the stake size and probability of being paid, including...

Various theories of social behavior propose that individuals condition actions that involve a moral value by following each other’s behavior. The theoretical and experimental instruments employed to evaluate this conditioning, often focus only on the diffusion of actions with negative moral...

A large body of evidence suggests that people are willing to sacrifice personal material gain in order to adhere to a moral motive such as fairness or truth-telling. Yet less is known about what happens when moral motives are in conflict. We hypothesize that in such situations, individuals...

In a variety of individual decision contexts, people have been shown to exhibit presentbiased time preferences. Little is known, however, about discounting when there are trade-offs between own and others' consumption. In this paper, we provide a systematic analysis of present bias in individual...

In this experiment, we study whether individuals' labour market state (i.e. employed, student or NEET) affect their trusting and trustworthy behavior. To identify both the effect of labour market state and the effect of information on others' labour market state over one's behavior, we implement...