Abundant evidence across the behavioral and social sciences suggests that there are substantial individual differences in pro-social behavior. However, little is known about the psychological mechanisms that underlie social preferences. This paper investigates whether empathy and Theory of Mind shape individual differences in pro-social behavior as conventionally observed in neutrally framed social science experiments. Our results show that individual differences in the capacity for empathy do not shape social preferences. The results qualify the role of Theory of Mind in strategic interaction. We do not only show that fair individuals exhibit more accurate beliefs about the behavior of others but that Theory of Mind can be effectively used to pursue both self-interest and pro-social goals depending on the principle objectives of a person.

No abstract

No abstract

Motivated agents are characterized by increasing their eort if their work generates not only a monetary return for them but also a benet for a mission they support. While their motivation may stem from working for their preferred (i.e., the`right') mission, it may also be the principal's choice of the right mission (i.e., a mission preference match) that motivates them. We investigate experimentally to what extent these two motivations are driving the eect of a mission on agent eort. We nd that agents care not only about the mission as such but also whether the principal shares this mission. Our analysis estimates the additional eect of a mission preference match to be as big as the eect of just working for the right mission. It seems that the full potential of`motivation by mission' is realized only when principals share as well as support the agents' mission, stressing the importance of the economics of identity in labor market settings.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractViewing individual contributions as investments in emission reduction we rely on the familiar linear public goods-game to set global reduction targets which, if missed, imply that all payoffs are destroyed with a certain probability. Regulation by milestones does not only impose a final reduction target but also intermediate ones. In our leading example the regulating agency is Mother Nature but our analysis can, of course, be applied to other regulating agencies as well. We are mainly testing for milestone effects by varying the size of milestones in addition to changing the marginal productivity of individual contributions and the probability to lose. Jena, Germany. Tel.: +49 3641 686684. E-mail address: koppel@econ.mpg.de * We are grateful to Christoph Engel, Gerhard Riener, M. Vittoria Levati, Michael Huettner, Oliver Kirchkamp and Sebastian Vergara, for valuable comments. We also would like to thank seminar audiences at the 2010 ESA world meeting in Copenhagen and the 2010 IAREP/SABE/ ICABEEP conference in Cologne for their feedback. We are indebted to Christian Streubel for programming assistance.