DMEP
Decision Making and Economic Psychology
Research highlights
Do customers return excessive change in a restaurant?
A field experiment on dishonesty
(Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2013)
Ofer H. Azar, Shira Yosef, Michael Bar-Eli
The article reports the results of a field experiment used to study dishonest behavior in a natural setting. Customers in a restaurant in tables of one or two diners who paid with cash received excessive change of either 10 or 40 Shekels. A majority of customers (128 out of 192) did not return the excessive change. Repeated customers returned the excessive change much more often than one-time customers. Women returned the extra change much more often than men, especially among repeated customers. Tables with two diners were not significantly more likely to return the excessive change. Customers receiving 10 extra Shekels were much less likely to return them than those who received 40 extra Shekels.
A person-organization discontinuity in contract perception: Why corporations can get away with breaking contracts but individuals cannot
(Management Science, 2013)
This research examined perceptions of formal contracts. While contracts are typically seen as either morally binding promises or morally neutral business instruments, this work found that individuals’ contracts are associated more strongly with promises than are organizations’ contracts. Consequently, people judge organizations more leniently then individuals for breaching contracts. To counteract this problem, contractual obligations should be phrased in “promise” terms.
Justifications for dishonest behavior
When people are able to justify an unethical act they are more likely to behave unethically, and judge such behavior leniently. Private justifications it seems, make it possible to feel honest while lying. David Leiser and I found that people vary on their moral firmness, differentiating (or not) between different types of lies. With Yoella Bereby-Meyer and Ori Eldar, we further found that time pressure increases lying, and honesty requires time (and lack of justifications).
Between self-interest and reciprocity: The social bright side of self-control failure
(JEP: General, 2014)
Eliran Halali, Yoella Bereby-Meyer, & Nachshon Meiran
People often reciprocate in their social life even when it incurs costs and provides no material rewards. Is such a behavior a deliberative cognitive-controlled act or is it an automatic act? We found that depletion of cognitive-control resources resulted in a higher rejection rate of unfair Ultimatum-Game offers, i.e., increased negative reciprocity, and in a higher average returned amount in response to highly trusting investments in the Trust-Game, i.e., increased positive reciprocity. The later demonstrates an exceptional rare positive bright side for self-control failure. We suggest that a dual processes approach, that differentiates between affective (system 1) and deliberative (system 2) processes can account for these findings.