Altruism versus Egoism in Human Behavior of Mixed Motives

ABSTRACT . This article begins with the observation that people often cooperate in social dilemmas. Specifically, they may do so either for altruistic reasons or for reasons indirectly linked to self‐interest. Because these competing motivations exist in different contexts, we explore the consequences of the incorporation of altruism in the economic framework in the context of a series of prisoner's dilemma experiments. Our experiments involve student subjects in groups of three. Each student plays two rounds of a monetary prisoner's dilemma game with the other two subjects in that group. We find evidence for recognizably different levels of the altruistic behavior of cooperation due to personal attributes and specific experimental conditions. Cooperation rates are higher for female students and more senior students. Of more interest is the evidence that economics majors tend to behave more cooperatively than noneconomics majors.     

The effect of “socially moral” purchases on future financial donations

Many for-profit companies are adopting third sector missions, and conversely, nonprofit agencies are developing profit-generating business ventures. Consequently, there are an increasing number of market-based transactions connected to social good activity. We wondered what the impact of prosocial market-based transactions were on future in charitable giving. On the one hand, moral reinforcement argues that purchasing products with a social good would increase future charitable giving. On the other hand, moral licensing suggests that once people feel or provide evidence that they are a morally good person, their future actions are more selfish, immoral, and/or unethical. Thus, it is possible that purchasing a product with a social good would decrease future charitable giving. Following a protocol for psychological research, we conducted a series of 3 experiments to test the effect of socially moral purchases. We found evidence for moral reinforcement and no evidence for moral licensing. For men in Study 1 and all participants in Studies 2 and 3, participants were likely to donate more after imagining or remembering socially moral purchases. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Homo Economicus Meets G. H. Mead: A Contribution to the Critique of Economic Theory

A bstract .   The relation between economic behavior and morality remains a live issue within economics and cognate disciplines. The standard view among economists themselves has been that while moral positions (understood broadly) may motivate our behavior, they do not capacitate or enable it. On this view the figure of Homo economicus , representing the how as against the why of our actions, must be understood as resolutely amoral. In this article, we attempt to recover the logic of this position, as well as those of critics who would modify the standard view in some way. Although also critical of the conventional economics-and-ethics divide, we argue that Homo economicus would benefit from a more fundamental rethinking, one that takes account of the theory of the self and its acts, as developed by the social psychologist G. H. Mead. On a Meadian view the economic actor would neither have to grow additional capacities in order to coordinate with his or her fellows, as the evolutionary games theorist's agent has to do, nor depart or deviate from purposeful behavior, as does Homo sociologicus . On a Meadian view, economic capacity has to be more richly endowed than standard Homo economicus in order to do what it is supposed to do, but it is recognizably still a single, purposeful capacity.     

The Moral Economy of Parallel Currencies

A bstract .   This article offers a monetary analysis of Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) and examines both their moral and economic significance as well as the way in which these two aspects may conflict. After considering LETS' principles and history, I review three monetary theories in order to ascertain how one might best explore these phenomena. By drawing on the "Chartalist" tradition in monetary theory, I show (1) how strongly oriented LETS are to the formal market economy, from which, it is held, they detach themselves, and (2) that they do not effect a return to barter or an abolition of money, as is sometimes claimed. Both points become clear when one pays due attention to the primary function of money as money-of-account. In the final section, I consider LETS empirically and compare their structural potentials with their concrete form. LETS' members are motivated less by pecuniary gain than by the desire to build community and realize certain values. Participants have little motivation to expand LETS, which are therefore destined to remain small and ineffectual in offering an alternative to the unemployed and less well-off. Indeed, were LETS to grow in size, the moral commitment required of members would come into conflict with the growing financial interests at stake.     

The Pelagian Controversy: An Economic Analysis

A bstract .   In recent years economic theory has been used to analyze the introduction of new religious doctrines as innovations that further the objectives of religious organizations and their leaders. The present study analyzes the decision of church authorities in the early fifth century to reject the doctrine advanced by Pelagius in favor of the position taken by Augustine. Accounts of the controversy reveal two self-interested motives for the church hierarchy to reject the Pelagian doctrine: (1) the Pelagian view would have undermined the authority of the church hierarchy; and (2) by making greater demands for moral conduct, it would have raised the "cost" of being a Christian and thereby discouraged growth in church membership, particularly among the Roman upper class.     

Theorizing Financial Crimes as Moral Actions

Abstract

The paper maintains that all acts of financial crimes can be explained within a general theory of moral action and analyzed as such. In this regard, the paper presents such a theory – Situational Action Theory (SAT) – and argues that acts of financial crimes result from a perception-choice process involving rational deliberation and experimental habituation, themselves being the outcomes of interactions between individuals and their environments. To examine this argument, the paper draws on two recent high-profile fraud cases to critically discuss the extent to which these crimes should be meaningfully and innovatively analyzed as moral actions and the moral context in which they occur. The findings indicate that the feature most relevant to a criminogenic is its moral context in relation to the opportunities and frictions that it generates. As such, environmental factors along with psychosocial processes of moral education become particularly important in the explanation of why certain moral contexts emerge in particular kinds of settings at a particular point in time. In this regard, SAT can be used as a powerful overarching framework to gain a more comprehensive understanding of peoples’ choice processes to breach moral rules and devise effective crime prevention strategies to combat fraud.     

On the Economics of Moral Preferences

Abstract . The long‐standing critique of the “economic model of man” has gained new impetus, not least due to the broadening research in behavioral and experimental economics. Many of the critics have focused on the apparent difficulty of traditional rational choice theory to account for the role of moral or ethical concerns in human conduct, and a number of authors have suggested modifications in the standard model in response to such critique. This article takes issue with a quite commonly adopted “revisionist” strategy, namely, seeking to account for moral concerns by including them as additional preferences in an agent's utility function. It is argued that this strategy ignores the critical difference between preferences over outcomes and preferences over actions, and that it fails to recognize that “moral preferences” belong in the second category. Preferences over actions, however, cannot be consistently accounted for within a theoretical framework that focuses on the rationality of single actions. They require a shift of perspective, from a theory of rational choice to a theory of rule‐following behavior.     

Motives for Intergenerational Transfers: New Test for Exchange

The question of motives for private transfers is one with important policy implications. The evidence from empirical literature has been mixed. This study proposes new tests and evidence of the “exchange motive.” It examines the key assumption on which the exchange motive model is built: that a donor's behavior is determined by his/her own expectation of receiving inter‐vivos transfers or bequests in return. Results from national data show that adult children's time transfers to their aging parents were positively associated with their expectation of inter‐vivos financial transfers, but not with their expectation of receiving bequests.     

The Narrative of 'Evidence Based' Management: A Polemic

abstract    'Evidence based' management is a popular contemporary account of the relationship between research and practice in management studies. This paper critically examines the implications of this account from the perspective of Formalism: a narratological approach to critique that focuses on how narratives are made compelling, and hence powerful. Compelling narratives deploy devices that establish (i) credibility and (ii) defamiliarization. Using this approach the paper identifies and examines different ideological strands in the nascent literature on evidence based management: pragmatism , progress , systematization , technique , accumulation . These are the means by which advocates of evidence based approaches construct a compelling story about the value of this approach. Prior criticism of the evidence based approach has centred on epistemological and technical issues. The aim here is to use an aesthetic mode of criticism to highlight political and moral implications. These are important given the relationship between claims to knowledge and the use of power; and the interaction between management research, and management as practice.     

9 Persons: Natural,Functional, or Ethical Kind?

A bstract .   In this paper, I examine alternative views of personhood and how they affect our understanding of life and death. Building on David Wiggins's insight that our concept of person tries to hold in a single focus our nature as a biological being, a subject of consciousness, and a locus of moral values, I argue against views that try to reduce persons to one of these aspects at the expense of the others. Thought experiments that have been prominent in the literature on personal identity are criticized on grounds that they sunder persons from the moral and cultural context in which they appear and ignore an essential relational aspect of persons. I argue for a substantive view of persons that understands persons as "constituted by" but not identical to human organisms, and that treats persons as having essential relational properties. Persons are thus beings whose nature is not determined entirely by their biology or psychology but is, in part, a matter of individual, moral, and cultural construction. I argue that such a view provides the best theoretical grounding to answer the more practical, bioethical questions concerning the beginning and end of life.     

Are Reports of Discrimination Valid? Considering the Moral Hazard Effect

A bstract .   Antidiscrimination laws are designed to prompt employers to stop excluding black workers from jobs they offer and from treating them unequally with respect to promotion and salaries once on the job. However, a moral hazard effect can arise if the existence of the laws leads black employees to bring unjustified claims of discrimination against employers. It has been argued that employers may become more reluctant to hire black workers for fear of being subjected to frivolous lawsuits.
Using the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality (MCSUI), we find that male and female black workers are far more likely than whites to report racial discrimination at work. This is the case even when a host of human capital and labor market factors are controlled for. Further, nearly all black workers who report they have been discriminated against on the job in the MCSUI Surveys also show statistical evidence of wage discrimination. This is not the case for white males or females. We find little evidence to support a moral hazard effect.     

There's No Place Like Home

A bstract .   Employment stability for many nonstandard workers is tenuous and early research shows some types of nonstandard employment carry long-term consequences in the form of lower wages and fewer benefits over time. This paper seeks to add to the literature by considering another long-term consequence for nonstandard workers: the inability of some nonstandard workers to accumulate assets. The particular asset this paper focuses on is home ownership. Logistic regression results using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 suggest that current and past employment in some nonstandard jobs, especially as a temporary worker, is associated with a lower probability of owning a home. This may have repercussions not only for households with temporary workers but for their community as well, since home ownership has been tied to positive spillovers such as increased social capital and community involvement.     

Motives behind equity holding by banks: Evidence from India

This paper examines the motives behind equity holding by banks in non-financial firms. It has been argued that banks hold equity in firms primarily for two reasons: to support their debt holding or for returns as capital investments. This paper tries to examine which among these two motives drive equity holdings by Development Financial Institutions in India (DFIs). Results indicate that equity holding by DFIs in India is primarily driven by their interest as creditors. In poorly performing firms, equity holding by DFIs is also driven by debt restructuring in firms in the form of conversion of debt to equity. The author would like to thank Subrata Sarkar, Vikas Rawal and an anonymous referee of the journal for their comments. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Financial forecasting and risky decisions: an experimental study grounded in Prospect theory

This study employed prospect theory to examine relationships between effort invested in developing financial forecasts and risk taking. Results of an experimental study indicated that the more effort subjects invested in developing forecasts, the more likely they were to use those forecasts as their reference points when evaluating venture performance. Results also indicated that subjects who used forecasts as their reference points and exerted greater effort developing those forecasts were more likely to take risky actions when performance fell below their reference points. This study is the first to link effort to the type of reference point used and the first to link effort and the use of financial forecasts to risky decisions. In addition, it is one of only a few studies to employ prospect theory to examine risk taking decisions subsequent to start-up. Its results enhance our understanding of risk taking, prospect theory and reference points.

     

The Private Finance Initiative: Has the Accounting Standards Board Reduced the Scheme's Value for Money?

This article examines the state of PFI in the UK following an amendment published by the ASB to FRS 5. It was predicted that this amendment would mean that most properties constructed by the private sector, on behalf of the public sector, would have suddenly to appear on the balance sheets of the latter. This would have led to an unacceptable level of public sector borrowing and could have undermined the entire rationale for the scheme. Having outlined the objectives of PFI and explained the attitude adopted by the ASB, the article examines the reaction of HM Treasury. The article then demonstrates the likely consequences of the main parties in PFI contracts passing on as much risk as possible to the private sector so as to ensure that the assets remain off balance sheet. It concludes by assessing the expected impact that these actions will have on value for money.     

Staring at the Abyss: a neurocognitive grounded agent-based model of collective-risk social dilemma under the threat of environmental disaster

Increasingly visible climate change consequences challenge carbon-based economies worldwide. While expert knowledge on climate change percolates through political initiatives and public awareness, its translation into large-scale policy actions appears limited. Climate change consequences unequally target regions, countries and social classes, a vital issue for social cooperation. When facing an imminent ecological collapse, in which conditions can self-interested agents gain environmental awareness and settle on a sustainable path of actions when their knowledge of the imminent collapse is bounded? This cooperation emerges from the interaction between individuals and the interaction of various cognitive processes within individuals. This article develops an agent-based model for this emergence of cooperation enriched with the Agent Zero neurocognitive grounded cognitive architecture. We investigate when agents endowed with deliberative, affective and social modules can settle on actions that safeguard their environment through numerical simulations. Our results show that cooperation on sustainable actions is the strongest when the system is at the edge of collapse. Policy measures that increase the environment’s resilience become internalized by the agents and undermine awareness of the ecological catastrophe. Depending on the cognitive channels activated, agent behaviors and reactions to specific interventions significantly vary. Our analysis suggests that taking different cognitive channels, deliberative, affective, social, and others into account, significantly impact results. The complexity of agent cognition deserves more attention to assess parameter sensitivity in social simulation models.

     

Rational Irrationality and Group Size: The Effect of Biased Beliefs on Individual Contributions Towards Collective Goods

The price of irrationality or belief manipulation varies as we move from small to large group settings. Individual members of large groups can more cheaply bias downwards their beliefs as to the immorality of their free‐riding thereby circumventing internal moral constraints. The relative anonymity inherent to large number settings moreover reduces social pressures against free‐riding stemming from some common ethical or moral norms. Both selfish individuals facing an internal moral constraint to behave altruistically and those with altruistic preferences have an incentive to bias upward their belief of the decisiveness of their contribution in large number settings. In addition, the impact of symmetry and the illusion of control can introduce biases regarding the expected reactions of others to one's own decisions. The loosening of moral constraints will tend to increase free‐rider behavior while biased beliefs about the decisiveness of one's contribution or the reaction of others to one's actions will tend to decrease such behavior.     

The Impact of Organizational Culture and Reshaping Capabilities on Change Implementation Success: The Mediating Role of Readiness for Change

abstract    It was hypothesized that employees' perceptions of an organizational culture strong in human relations values and open systems values would be associated with heightened levels of readiness for change which, in turn, would be predictive of change implementation success. Similarly, it was predicted that reshaping capabilities would lead to change implementation success, via its effects on employees' perceptions of readiness for change. Using a temporal research design, these propositions were tested for 67 employees working in a state government department who were about to undergo the implementation of a new end-user computing system in their workplace. Change implementation success was operationalized as user satisfaction and system usage. There was evidence to suggest that employees who perceived strong human relations values in their division at Time 1 reported higher levels of readiness for change at pre-implementation which, in turn, predicted system usage at Time 2. In addition, readiness for change mediated the relationship between reshaping capabilities and system usage. Analyses also revealed that pre-implementation levels of readiness for change exerted a positive main effect on employees' satisfaction with the system's accuracy, user friendliness, and formatting functions at post-implementation. These findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical contribution to the readiness for change literature, and in relation to the practical importance of developing positive change attitudes among employees if change initiatives are to be successful.     

浅谈如何上好新形势下的技校德育课

德育课,对于学生来说,就是进行思想品德素质和正确的人生观教育。但是,由于学生在中学阶段对政洽课的印象是枯燥乏味,单调呆板,抽象的理论讲解,加之这门课是公共课,因此,学生们对这科不感兴趣。他们认为学习德育课没有必要,只要把专业课学好就行了。在这种情况下,为了把德育课上好,我有以下几点体验。     

Contracts to Communities: A Processual Model of Organizational Virtue

abstract In the face of systemic challenges to corporate legitimacy, scholars and managers alike have been rethinking traditional answers to the question: What does it take to be a good company? We approach this question in two novel ways. We offer a normative answer, grounded in virtue ethics, by introducing a threefold typology of organizational forms. The moral goodness of each form depends on the congruence between its purpose and virtues. But we also offer a positive answer in the form of a processual model which traces corporate goodness to its empirical antecedents and consequences. The model defies a view of organizations as innately good or evil, but rather portrays virtue as the sediment of a value infusion process. We predict that if managers succeed in establishing in their organizations the kind of virtues necessary to support collective moral agency, they can expect to reap gains like enhanced effectiveness and legitimacy. However, when they neglect their moral responsibilities, the result will likely be organizational demise.