Do people intuitively favour certain actions over others? In some dual-process research, reaction-time (RT) data have been used to infer that certain choices are intuitive. However, the use of behavioural or biological measures to infer mental function, popularly known as ‘reverse inference', is problematic because it does not take into account other sources of variability in the data, such as discriminability of the choice options. Here we use two example data sets obtained from value-based choice experiments to demonstrate that, after controlling for discriminability (that is, strength-of-preference), there is no evidence that one type of choice is systematically faster than the other. Moreover, using specific variations of a prominent value-based choice experiment, we are able to predictably replicate, eliminate or reverse previously reported correlations between RT and selfishness. Thus, our findings shed crucial light on the use of RT in inferring mental processes and strongly caution against using RT differences as evidence favouring dual-process accounts.

Abstract:To fully understand the motives for delegating a decision right, it is important to study responsibility attributions for outcomes of delegated decisions. We conducted an experiment in which subjects were able to delegate the choice between a fair or unfair allocation, and used a punishment option to elicit responsibility attributions. Our results show that, first, responsibility attribution can be effectively shifted and, second, this constitutes a powerful motive for the delegation of a decision right. Furthermore, we propose a formal measure of responsibility and show that this measure outperforms measures based on outcome or intention in predicting punishment behavior.

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This article studies socially responsible behavior in markets. We develop a laboratory product market in which low-cost production creates a negative externality for third parties, but where alternative production with higher costs mitigates the externality. Our first study, conducted in Switzerland, reveals a persistent preference among many consumers and firms for avoiding negative social impact in the market, reflected both in the composition of product types and in a price premium for socially responsible products. Socially responsible behavior is generally robust to varying market characteristics, such as increased seller competition and limited consumer information, and it responds to prices in a manner consistent with a model in which positive social impact is a utility-enhancing feature of a consumer product. In a second study, we investigate whether market social responsibility varies across societies by comparing market behavior in Switzerland and China. While subjects in Switzerland and China do not differ in their degree of social concern in nonmarket contexts, we find that low-cost production that creates negative externalities is significantly more prevalent in markets in China. Across both studies, consumers in markets exhibit less social concern than subjects in a comparable individual choice context. This paper studies socially responsible behavior in markets. We develop a laboratory product market in which low-cost production creates a negative externality for third parties, but where alternative production with higher costs mitigates the externality. Our first study, conducted in Switzerland, reveals a persistent preference among many consumers and firms for avoiding negative social impact in the market, reflected both in the composition of product types and in a price premium for socially responsible products. Socially responsible behavior is generally robust to varying market characteristics, such as increased seller competition and limited consumer information, and it responds to prices in a manner consistent with a model in which positive social impact is a utility-enhancing feature of a consumer product. In a second study, we investigate whether market social responsibility varies across societies by comparing market behavior in Switzerland and China. While subjects in Switzerland and China do not differ in their degree of social concern in non-market contexts, we find that low-cost production that creates negative externalities is significantly more prevalent in markets in China. Across both studies, consumers in markets exhibit less social concern than subjects in a comparable individual choice context. JEL Codes: C92, D03, D62, M14 * We are grateful to two editors, Lawrence Katz and Andrei Shleifer, and three anonymous referees for helpful suggestions that improved the paper. We also thank

People make numerous decisions every day including perceptual decisions such as walking through a crowd, decisions over primary rewards such as what to eat, and social decisions that require balancing own and others’ benefits. The unifying principles behind choices in various domains are, however, still not well understood. Mathematical models that describe choice behavior in specific contexts have provided important insights into the computations that may underlie decision making in the brain. However, a critical and largely unanswered question is whether these models generalize from one choice context to another. Here we show that a model adapted from the perceptual decision-making domain and estimated on choices over food rewards accurately predicts choices and reaction times in four independent sets of subjects making social decisions. The robustness of the model across domains provides behavioral evidence for a common decision-making process in perceptual, primary reward, and social decision making.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Philosophers, psychologists, and economists have long argued that certain d rights carry not only instrumental value but may also be valuable for their ow The ideas of autonomy, freedom, and liberty derive their intuitive appealpartly -from an assumed positive intrinsic value of decision rights. Providin evidence for the existence of this intrinsic value and measuring its size, how intricate. Here, we develop a method capable of achieving these goals. The dat that the large majority of our subjects intrinsically value decision rights beyond th strumental benefit. The intrinsic valuation of decision rights has potentially im consequences for corporate governance, human resource management, and o job design: it may explain why managers value power, why employees apprec with task discretion, why individuals sort into self-employment, and why the r tion of decision rights is often very difficult and cumbersome. Our method and may also prove useful in developing an empirical revealed preference foundat concepts such as "freedom of choice" and "individual autonomy."

While most market transactions are subject to strong incentives, transactions within firms are often not explicitly incentivized. We offer an explanation for this observation based on the assumption that agents are envious and suffer utility losses if colleagues receive higher wages. We show that envy creates a tendency towards flat-wages if agents are risk-averse and there is no limited liability. Empirical evidence suggests that social comparisons are more pronounced among employees within firms than among individuals that interact in markets. Flat-wage contracts are thus more likely to be optimal in firms. Further, the paper analyzes in general the impact of envy on optimal incentive contracts for multiple agents and isolates the countervailing effects of envy on the costs of providing incentives.JEL Classification: D82, J3, M5

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Philosophers, psychologists, and economists have long argued that certain d rights carry not only instrumental value but may also be valuable for their ow The ideas of autonomy, freedom, and liberty derive their intuitive appealpartly -from an assumed positive intrinsic value of decision rights. Providin evidence for the existence of this intrinsic value and measuring its size, how intricate. Here, we develop a method capable of achieving these goals. The dat that the large majority of our subjects intrinsically value decision rights beyond th strumental benefit. The intrinsic valuation of decision rights has potentially im consequences for corporate governance, human resource management, and o job design: it may explain why managers value power, why employees apprec with task discretion, why individuals sort into self-employment, and why the r tion of decision rights is often very difficult and cumbersome. Our method and may also prove useful in developing an empirical revealed preference foundat concepts such as "freedom of choice" and "individual autonomy."