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  • American Economic Review

Conveniently Upset: Avoiding Altruism by Distorting Beliefs About Others' Altruism

By: Rafael Di Tella, Ricardo Perez-Truglia, Andres Babino and Mariano Sigman
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Abstract

We present results from a “corruption game” (a dictator game modified so that recipients can take a side payment in exchange for accepting a reduction in the overall size of the pie). Dictators (silently) treated to be able to take more of the recipient’s tokens, took more of them. They were also more likely to believe that recipients had accepted side payments, even if there was a prize for accuracy. The results favor the hypothesis that people avoid altruistic actions by distorting beliefs about others’ altruism.

Keywords

Convenient Beliefs; Cognitive Dissonance; Values and Beliefs; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking

Citation

Di Tella, Rafael, Ricardo Perez-Truglia, Andres Babino, and Mariano Sigman. "Conveniently Upset: Avoiding Altruism by Distorting Beliefs About Others' Altruism." American Economic Review 105, no. 11 (November 2015): 3416–3442.
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About The Author

Rafael M. Di Tella

Business, Government and the International Economy
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  • The Trouble with TCE By: Vincent Pons and Rafael Di Tella
  • What's My Employee Worth? The Effects of Salary Benchmarking By: Zoë B. Cullen, Shengwu Li and Ricardo Perez-Truglia
  • Causal Inference During A Pandemic: Evidence on the Effectiveness of Nebulized Ibuprofen as an Unproven Treatment for COVID-19 in Argentina By: Sebastian Calonico, Rafael Di Tella and Juan Cruz Lopez Del Valle
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