The Short Arm of Guilt: Guilt Aversion Plays Out More Across a Short Social Distance

In a laboratory experiment, I test whether guilt aversion, i.e., a preference to fulfill other people’s expectations, plays out stronger if agents are socially close. I induce two different group identities among participants. They play a dictator game. Dictators either play with a recipient from their own group (ingroup treatment) or from the other group (outgroup treatment). Dictators condition their amount sent on second-order beliefs. I find that, the positive influence of second-order beliefs on how much the dictator sends is stronger in the ingroup treatment than in the outgroup treatment. From this and some corroborating findings I conclude that – absent other salient motivational factors – guilt aversion plays out more strongly across a short social distance.