Experiment participants in a social dilemma game choose cooperation over defection, even though neither is more beneficial. High levels of cooperation cannot be explained by favorable labels for actions, collusion, k-level reasoning, quantal response behavior, or misplaced optimism about others'...

In July 2021, severe floods devastated parts of Germany, causing numerous casualties and extensive damage to property and infrastructure. As climate change is expected to increase the frequency and severity of such extreme weather events, understanding their social implications is crucial. Using...

Interrelated global crises - climate change, pandemics, loss of ecosystem services and biodiversity - pose risks that demand collective solutions. Uncertainty about others' behavior, coupled with the dependence on some to take collective efforts to mitigate risks for all (e.g. conservation of...

We exploit education reforms in Sweden and other European countries to estimate the causal effects of longer and modernized compulsory education on civic engagement. In most countries, compulsory education was extended by 1-2 years, and the curricula were reformed to better foster democratic and...

While people often avoid learning about negative social consequences of their actions in order to behave selfishly, many social situations involve another person who is in a position to impose this information. How does the presence of a potential informer affect information, behavior, and...

In prosocial decisions, decision-makers face interpersonal uncertainty - uncertainty about how their choices impact others' utility. We use three approaches to show how it shapes classic patterns of prosocial behavior like ingroup favoritism, merit-based fairness, and self-favoring behavior....

This discussion paper contextualizes contemporary forms of artificial intelligence (AI) within the broader relationship between technology and society, and it compiles essential insights from the sociology of technology for interdisciplinary discourse. The paper begins with a concise overview of...

Virtue signaling serves to express moral and ethical values publicly, showcasing commitment to social and sustainable ideals. This research, conducted with non-WEIRD samples to mitigate the prevalent WEIRD bias (i.e., the tendency to solely rely on samples from Western, educated, industrialized,...

Prosocial behavior—actions aimed to benefit other individuals, groups, or communities—are important for promoting and maintaining a healthy society. Extant research on the factors driving prosocial behavior has mainly addressed short-term effects, overlooking the factors that motivate...

Identifying sensitive periods in which the returns to investments into skills are especially high is challenging, but crucial for an effective and efficient timing of parental or public investments aimed at fostering children's skills. We can detect sensitive periods with a novel design by...

Identifying sensitive periods in which the returns to investments into skills are especially high is challenging, but crucial for an effective and efficient timing of parental or public investments aimed at fostering children's skills. We can detect sensitive periods with a novel design by...

We characterize 'Games of Altruistic Cooperation' as a class of games in which cooperation leaves the individual and the group of decision-makers worse off than defection, but favors individuals outside the group. An example is climate change mitigation. In this context, we experimentally...

We investigate how group identity affects belief updating about moral norms. Using a Belief Updating task, we found that individuals follow a cautious version of Bayesian updating. Group identity itself does not directly affect belief updating. However, when given an information signal about the...

Standard economic theory assumes that consumers ignore the externalities they create, such as emissions from burning fossil fuels and generating waste. In an incentivized study (N = 3, 718), we find that most people forgo substantial gains to avoid imposing negative externalities on others....

We conducted a large-scale and long lasting randomized field experiment at the donation centers of the Belgian Red Cross-Flanders to study the impact of a small extra reward for plasma donations. Donors normally receive one thank-you-coupon (worth €1.5) for a blood donation and two coupons for...

Standard economic theory assumes that consumers ignore the externalities they create, such as emissions from burning fossil fuels and generating waste. In an incentivized study (N = 3, 718), we find that most people forgo substantial gains to avoid imposing negative externalities on others....

Standard economic theory assumes that consumers ignore the externalities they create, such as emissions from burning fossil fuels and generating waste. In an incentivized study (N = 3, 718), we find that most people forgo substantial gains to avoid imposing negative externalities on others....

Adolescents' educational choices are shaped by their peers. Using administrative data covering the entire population of Italian middle school students, we show that exposure to high-achieving male peers in math reduces the likelihood that girls choose a scientific high school track. To...

This study investigates the influence of leaders' prosociality and attitudes toward corporate social responsibility (CSR) on organizational involvement in CSR activities, as well as the impact of CSR involvement on leaders' job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Despite extensive...

Identifying sensitive periods in which the returns to investments into skills are especially high is challenging, but crucial for an effective and efficient timing of parental or public investments aimed at fostering children’s skills. We can detect sensitive periods with a novel design by...

Our study investigates how the devastating 2020-2022 Tigray War has affected the social preferences, reciprocity norms, and trust in a large sample of rural young adults in Tigray, Ethiopia, belonging to rural business groups. We rely on field experimental data with standardized incentivized...

Interethnic tensions pose a significant barrier to the socioeconomic advancement of minority groups. This paper investigates the effectiveness of educational entertainment (or edutainment) in promoting interethnic harmony. We carried out a cluster randomized field experiment involving over 3,300...

This paper empirically tests Max Weber's thesis on how religious narratives, particularly the Protestant Ethic, influence attitudes toward wealth redistribution. Weber suggested that the Protestant Reformation, led to the belief that economic success was a sign of divine favor, legitimizing...

Choosing what is morally right can be based on the consequences (ends) resulting from the decision - the Consequentialist view - or on the conformity of the means involved with some overarching notion of duty - the Deontological view. Using a series of experiments, we investigate the overall...