Bracht, Juergen (Economist)

Regner, Tobias

2011-028

beliefs

emotions

experiments

guilt aversion

guilt from blame

moral hazard

other-regarding behaviour

partnership

principal agent

psychological game theory

shame

social preferences

Actual behaviour is influenced in important ways by moral emotions, for instance guilt or shame (see, among others, Tangney et al., 2007). Belief-dependant models of social preferences using the framework of psychological games aim to consider such emotions to explain other-regarding behaviour. Our experimental study links recent advances in psychological theory on moral emotions to belief-dependant models in economics. We find that – in addition to second-order beliefs and promises – individuals’ disposition to guilt (their proneness to respond in an evaluative way to personal transgressions) is an important determinant of pro-social behaviour.