Enabling or Limiting Cognitive Flexibility? Evidence of Demand for Moral Commitment
Silvia Saccardo, Marta Serra-Garcia
American Economic Review · 2023 · Volume 113 · Issue 2
Abstract
Moral behavior is more prevalent when individuals cannot easily distort their beliefs self-servingly. Do individuals seek to limit or enable their ability to distort beliefs? How do these choices affect behavior? Experiments with over 9,000 participants show preferences are heterogeneous—30 percent of participants prefer to limit belief distortion, while over 40 percent prefer to enable it, even if costly. A random assignment mechanism reveals that being assigned to the preferred environment is necessary for curbing or enabling self-serving behavior. Third parties can anticipate these effects, suggesting some sophistication about the cognitive constraints to belief distortion.
Keywords
Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual, Asymmetric and Private Information, Mechanism Design, Search, Learning, Information and Knowledge, Communication, Belief, Unawareness, Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
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