The rapid evolution of homo economicus: Brief exposure to neoclassical assumptions increases self-interested behavior

Abstract

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 D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SThe The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public.IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. Economics students have been shown to exhibit more selfishness than other students. Because the literature identifies the impact of long-term exposure to economics instruction (e.g., taking a course), it cannot isolate the specific course content responsible; nor can selection, peer effects, or other confounds be properly controlled for. In a laboratory experiment, we use a within-and across-subject design to identify the impact of brief, randomly-assigned economics lessons on behavior in games often used to measure selfishness: the ultimatum game (UG), dictator game (DG), prisoner's dilemma (PD), and public-goods game (PGG). We find that a brief lesson that includes the assumptions of selfinterest and strategic considerations moves behavior toward traditional economic rationality in UG, PD, and DG. Despite entering the study with higher levels of selfishness than others, subjects with prior exposure to economics instruction have similar training effects. We show that the lesson reduces efficiency and increases inequity in the UG. The results demonstrate that even brief exposure to commonplace neoclassical economics assumptions measurably moves behavior toward self-interest.JEL Classification: A2, D6, C9, C7, A1

Do Economists Punish Less?

“…Our interest is in punishment aimed at non-cooperators as these punishments are central to sustaining high levels of cooperation. 5 Each subject was given a hypothetical scenario in which three group members gave their entire endowment to the others, and the fourth group member kept everything for himself. The scenario thus reflected the most extreme deviation from the norm of contributing, and we believed that the scenario would be most likely to trigger punishment.…”

“…Since Marwell and Ames [4] published their findings on the selfish behavior of economists in public goods experiments, it has been widely debated whether economists behave differently than people from other disciplines. A growing body of evidence suggests that economics students tend to behave more selfishly than other students (see Section 2) and that even brief instruction on economic rationality can shift behavior in that direction (e.g., [5]).…”

Social psychological aspects of “making” economists: A review of the nature versus nurture debate

“…As all participants are entitled to make use of the public account to the same extent, the socially optimal behavior would be to contribute to the public fund. But in these games, economics students had been more likely to free ride than high-school students (Marwell and Ames, 1981) and defected more than non-economists from various disciplines (Ifcher and Zarghamee, 2016). Economics and business undergraduates defect more often than nurses even if an efficient equilibrium can be reached by cooperation (Cadsby and Maynes, 1998).…”

“…In both categories of games, undergraduate economists, as both dictator and proposer, usually prioritized their own benefit. In the ultimatum variant, they accepted less than students from “other” fields, as the latter more frequently complied with common social norms of fairness and reciprocity (Carter and Irons, 1991; Ifcher and Zarghamee, 2016; Wang et al, 2011).…”

Uncovering the moral heuristics of altruism: A philosophical scale

“…Furthermore, educational exposure to neoclassical economic theory reifying the narrow homo-economic conception of human nature, characterizing human behavior as motivated by instrumental and relational self-interest such as financial gain, social status, and political advantage [14,23], has been shown to substantially increase self-interested behavior [10,[24][25][26]. Ultimately, the ubiquity of this framing within organizations has created a cultural environment in which financial incentives may crowd out altruistic behavior [4][5].…”