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An experimental study of prosocial motivation among criminals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Sigbjørn Birkeland ,
Alexander W. Cappelen ,
Erik Ø. Sørensen  and
Bertil Tungodden
Sigbjørn Birkeland
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, NHH Norwegian School of Economics, 5045 Bergen, Norway
Alexander W. Cappelen*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, NHH Norwegian School of Economics, 5045 Bergen, Norway
Erik Ø. Sørensen
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, NHH Norwegian School of Economics, 5045 Bergen, Norway
Bertil Tungodden
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, NHH Norwegian School of Economics, 5045 Bergen, Norway
*
alexander.cappelen@nhh.no
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Abstract

The fact that criminal behavior typically has negative consequences for others provides a compelling reason to think that criminals lack prosocial motivation. This paper reports the results from two dictator game experiments designed to study the prosocial motivation of criminals. In a lab experiment involving prisoners, we find a striking similarity in the prosocial behavior of criminals and non-criminals, both when they interact with criminals and when they interact with non-criminals. Similarly, in an Internet experiment on a large sample from the general population, we find no difference in the prosocial behavior of individuals with and without a criminal record. We argue that our findings provide evidence of criminals being as prosocially motivated as non-criminals in an important type of distributive situations.

Keywords

Prosocial motivationCriminals

JEL classification

D63: Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement K40: General C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 501 - 511
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic Supplementary Material The online version of this article (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-013-9380-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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