Journal ArticleDOI
Identity, Morals, and Taboos: Beliefs as Assets
Roland Bénabou,Jean Tirole +1 more
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A theory of moral behavior, individual and collective, based on a general model of identity in which people care about “who they are” and infer their own values from past choices is developed, shedding light on many empirical puzzles inconsistent with earlier approaches.Abstract:
We develop a theory of moral behavior, individual and collective, based on a general model of identity in which people care about “who they are” and infer their own values from past choices. The model sheds light on many empirical puzzles inconsistent with earlier approaches. Identity investments respond nonmonotonically to acts or threats, and taboos on mere thoughts arise to protect beliefs about the “priceless” value of certain social assets. High endowments trigger escalating commitment and a treadmill effect, while competing identities can cause dysfunctional capital destruction. Social interactions induce both social and antisocial norms of contribution, sustained by respectively shunning free riders or do-gooders.read more
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Individual and Corporate Social Responsibility
Roland Bénabou,Jean Tirole +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the benefits, costs and limits of socially responsible behaviour as a means to further societal goals are discussed, contrasting three possible understandings of the term: firms' adoption of a more long-term perspective, the delegated exercise of prosocial behaviour on behalf of stakeholders, and insider-initiated corporate philanthropy.
Journal ArticleDOI
Individual and Corporate Social Responsibility
Jean Tirole,Roland Bénabou +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the benefits, costs and limits of socially responsible behavior as a means to further societal goals are discussed for both individuals and firms, contrasting three possible understandings of the term: the adoption of a more long-term perspective by firms, the delegated exercise of prosocial behavior on behalf of stakeholders, and insider-initiated corporate philanthropy.
Journal ArticleDOI
Identity-based consumer behavior
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors define identity as any category label with which a consumer self-associates that is amenable to a clear picture of what a person in that category looks like, thinks, feels and does.
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Social Identity and Preferences
TL;DR: In this paper, the marginal behavioral effect of social identities on discount rates and risk aversion was identified by measuring how laboratory subjects' choices change when an aspect of social identity is made salient.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mindful Economics: The Production, Consumption, and Value of Beliefs
Roland Bénabou,Jean Tirole +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide a perspective into the main ideas and findings emerging from the growing literature on motivated beliefs and reasoning, emphasizing that beliefs often fulfill important psychological and functional needs of the individual.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
A theory of fairness, competition and cooperation
Ernst Fehr,Klaus M. Schmidt +1 more
TL;DR: This paper showed that if some people care about equity, the puzzles can be resolved and that the economic environment determines whether the fair types or the selesh types dominate equilibrium behavior in cooperative games.
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Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans
Claude M. Steele,Joshua Aronson +1 more
TL;DR: The role of stereotype vulnerability in the standardized test performance of ability-stigmatized groups is discussed and mere salience of the stereotype could impair Blacks' performance even when the test was not ability diagnostic.
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A Theory of Fairness, Competition and Cooperation
TL;DR: This article showed that if a fraction of the people exhibit inequality aversion, stable cooperation is maintained although punishment is costly for those who punish, and they also showed that when they are given the opportunity to punish free riders, stable cooperations are maintained.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life.
TL;DR: In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), Emile Durkheim set himself the task of discovering the enduring source of human social identity as discussed by the authors, and investigated what he considered to be the simplest form of documented religion - totemism among the Aborigines of Australia.