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Heterogeneous guilt sensitivities and incentive effects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Charles Bellemare ,
Alexander Sebald  and
Sigrid Suetens
Charles Bellemare*
Affiliation:
Département d’économique, Université Laval, CRREP, Quebec City, Canada
Alexander Sebald*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Sigrid Suetens*
Affiliation:
CentER, and TILEC, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands
*
cbellemare@ecn.ulaval.ca
Alexander.Sebald@econ.ku.dk
S.Suetens@uvt.nl
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Abstract

Psychological games of guilt aversion assume that preferences depend on (beliefs about) beliefs and on the guilt sensitivity of the decision-maker. We present an experiment designed to measure guilt sensitivities at the individual level for various stake sizes. We use the data to estimate a structural choice model that allows for heterogeneity, and permits that guilt sensitivities depend on stake size. We find substantial heterogeneity of guilt sensitivities in our population, with 60% of decision makers displaying stake-dependent guilt sensitivity. For these decision makers, we find that average guilt sensitivities are significantly different from zero for all stakes considered, while significantly decreasing with the level of stakes.

Keywords

Guilt sensitivityPsychological game theoryHeterogeneityStakesDictator game

JEL classification

A13: Relation of Economics to Social Values C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 2018 , pp. 316 - 336
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-017-9543-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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