On blame and reciprocity: Theory and experiments

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Celen, Bogachan; Schotter, Andrew; Blanco, Mariana
• 署名单位: New York University; University of Melbourne; New York University; New York University; Universidad del Rosario
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2017.01.006
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 62-92
• 关键词: Altruism; Blame; RECIPROCITY; Psychological games

摘要

The theory of reciprocity is predicated on the assumption that people are willing to reward kind acts and to punish unkind ones. This assumption raises the question of what kindness is. In this paper, we offer a novel definition of kindness based on a notion of blame. This notion states that for player j to judge whether or not player i is kind to him, player j has to put himself in the position of player i, and ask if he would act in a manner that is worse than what he believes player i does. If player j would act in a worse manner than player i, then we say that player j does not blame player i. If, however, player j would be nicer than player i, then we say that player j blames player i.:We believe this notion is a natural, intuitive and empirically functional way to explain the motives of people engaging in reciprocal behavior. After developing the conceptual framework, we test this concept by using data from two laboratory experiments and find significant support for the theory. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.