Selfishness as a Potential Cause of Crime - A Prison Experiment

Chmura, Thorsten; Engel, Christoph; Englerth, Markus

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2239027

Cited by 5 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 105 publications

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“…5 However, inmates became even more dishonest when their criminal identity was rendered more 3 See Birkeland et al (forthcoming), Khadjavi and Lange (2013), and Chmura et al (2013) for studies comparing distributive preferences and cooperation in criminals and non-criminals.…”

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confidence: 99%

Bad Boys: How Criminal Identity Salience Affects Rule Violation

Cohn

Maréchal²,

Noll³

2015

Review of Economic Studies

174

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We conducted an experiment with 182 inmates from a maximum security prison to analyze the impact of criminal identity salience on cheating. The results show that inmates cheat more when we exogenously render their criminal identity more salient. This effect is specific to individuals who have a criminal identity, because an additional placebo experiment shows that regular citizens do not become more dishonest in response to crime-related reminders. Moreover, our experimental measure of cheating correlates with inmates' offences against in-prison regulation. Together, these findings suggest that criminal identity salience plays a crucial role in rule violating behaviour. Review of Economic Studies, forthcoming AbstractWe conducted an experiment with 182 inmates from a maximum security prison to analyze the impact of criminal identity salience on cheating. The results show that inmates cheat more when we exogenously render their criminal identity more salient. This effect is specific to individuals who have a criminal identity, because an additional placebo experiment shows that regular citizens do not become more dishonest in response to crime-related reminders. Moreover, our experimental measure of cheating correlates with inmates' offenses against in-prison regulation. Together, these findings suggest that criminal identity salience plays a crucial role in rule violating behavior.JEL classification: K00, C93, K14, K42, Z10

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Bad Boys: How Criminal Identity Salience Affects Rule Violation

Cohn

Maréchal²,

Noll³

2015

Review of Economic Studies

174

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“…Very few studies have compared the behavior of offenders to nonoffenders in the dictator or ultimatum games, providing little empirical work to directly support or refute our theoretical hypotheses. The known research papers that examined offenders’ behavior in the dictator game, however, reached results that failed to support our proposed hypothesis (Birkeland et al 2014; Chmura, Engel, and Englerth 2013). More specifically, Chmura, Engel, and Englerth (2013) conducted the dictator game among a German, all-male, juvenile (age range 18–24) prisoner sample and compared the results with metadata comprised of 129 papers.…”

Section: The Empirical Relationship Between Offender Status and Givinmentioning

confidence: 55%

“…The known research papers that examined offenders’ behavior in the dictator game, however, reached results that failed to support our proposed hypothesis (Birkeland et al 2014; Chmura, Engel, and Englerth 2013). More specifically, Chmura, Engel, and Englerth (2013) conducted the dictator game among a German, all-male, juvenile (age range 18–24) prisoner sample and compared the results with metadata comprised of 129 papers. Results concluded that prisoner offers were not statistically distinguishable from the general public (Chmura et al 2013).…”

Section: The Empirical Relationship Between Offender Status and Givinmentioning

confidence: 55%

“…More specifically, Chmura, Engel, and Englerth (2013) conducted the dictator game among a German, all-male, juvenile (age range 18–24) prisoner sample and compared the results with metadata comprised of 129 papers. Results concluded that prisoner offers were not statistically distinguishable from the general public (Chmura et al 2013). Birkeland et al (2014) also considered whether offenders’ dictator game behavior was distinguishable from nonoffenders in two studies.…”

Section: The Empirical Relationship Between Offender Status and Givinmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social Preferences as an Individual Difference in Offender Decision-making

Jaynes

Loughran

2018

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency

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Objectives: We examined the relationship between social preference game behavior and offender status and tested whether this relationship was attributed to genuine prosocial preferences or confounded by individual differences in future orientation, sensation seeking, and risk-taking. Methods: Offender and nonoffender samples played the dictator and ultimatum games. Ordered and generalized ordered logistic regression models were used to test the hypothesis that when compared to nonoffenders, offenders would demonstrate increased self-interest, while also considering competing theoretical mechanisms. Results: Offenders appeared to be more self-interested as indicated by smaller offers in the dictator game. This relationship, however, was attributed to differences in future orientation between the two groups rather than differences in social preferences. Net of demographic controls and competing theoretical mechanisms, however, offenders made smaller offers in the ultimatum game. We argue this finding revealed differences in strategic decision-making between the two groups. Conclusions: Results suggested that offenders were not distinguishable from nonoffenders by individual differences in social preferences. While nonoffenders made larger offers in both games, this finding was attributed to differences in temporal orientation and risk-taking rather than differences in prosocial preferences. This supported the rational choice assumption of self-interest and highlighted differences in strategic decision-making between offenders and nonoffenders.

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“…We do not claim, therefore, to have fully measured individuals' locus of control, but rather use the questionnaire to define broad individual preference 'types'. The analysis presented here falls within the growing area of literature on the application of economic experiments to the economics of crime typically through -as here -the implementation of experiments on cooperation, trust and altruism conducted with samples of convicted prisoners (Birkeland et al, 2014;Kadjevi et al, 2013 andChmura et al, 2013). The motivation underlying these papers is to evaluate whether there are differences between the social behaviour of prisoners and ordinary citizens, such as students or the general population, since criminals clearly manifest anti-social behaviour in their professional life.…”

Section: A Brief Note On Camorramentioning

confidence: 99%

Cooperation, punishment and organized crime: a lab-in-the-field experiment in southern Italy

Nese

O’Higgins

Sbriglia

et al. 2018

European Economic Review

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This paper reports the results of an experimental investigation which allows a deeper insight into the nature of social preferences amongst organized criminals and how these differ from "ordinary" criminals on the one hand and from the non-criminal population in the same geographical area on the other. We provide experimental evidence on cooperation and response to sanctions by running Prisoner's Dilemma and Third Party Punishment games on three different pools of subjects; students, 'Ordinary Criminals' and Camorristi (Neapolitan 'Mafiosi'). The latter two groups being recruited from within prisons. We are thus able to separately identify 'Prison' and 'Camorra' effects. Camorra prisoners show a high degree of cooperativeness and a strong tendency to punish, as well as a clear rejection of the imposition of external rules even at significant cost to themselves. In contrast, ordinary criminals behave in a much more opportunistic fashion, displaying lower levels of cooperation and, in the game with Third Party punishment, punishing less as well as tending to punish cooperation (almost as much) as defection. Our econometric analyses further enriches the analysis demonstrating inter alia that individuals' locus of control and reciprocity are associated with quite different and opposing behaviours amongst different participant types; a strong sense of self-determination and reciprocity both imply a higher propensity to cooperate and to punish for both students and Camorra inmates, but quite the opposite for ordinary criminals, further reinforcing the contrast between the behaviour of ordinary criminals and the strong internal mores of Camorra clans.

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Selfishness as a Potential Cause of Crime - A Prison Experiment

Cited by 5 publications

References 105 publications

Bad Boys: How Criminal Identity Salience Affects Rule Violation

Bad Boys: How Criminal Identity Salience Affects Rule Violation

Social Preferences as an Individual Difference in Offender Decision-making

Cooperation, punishment and organized crime: a lab-in-the-field experiment in southern Italy

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