Reciprocity under moral wiggle room: Is it a preference or a constraint?
通过二元信任博弈实验，研究在存在道德模糊空间时，互惠行为是源于内在偏好还是社会约束，发现互惠更多出于义务感而非偏好。
Abstract We analyze reciprocal behavior when moral wiggle room exists. Dana et al. (Econ Theory 33(1):67–80, 2007) show that giving in a dictator game is inconsistent with distributional preferences as the giving rate drops when situational excuses for selfish behavior are provided. Our binary trust game closely follows their design. Only a preceding stage (safe outside option vs. enter the game) is added in order to introduce reciprocity. We find significantly lower rates of selfish choices in the trust baseline in comparison to our treatments that feature moral wiggle room manipulations and a dictator baseline. It seems that reciprocal behavior is not only due to people liking to reciprocate but also because they feel obliged to do so.