People often conform to others either pro-socially or self-interestedly. By conducting modified dictator game experiments where subjects observe others’ behaviors, this study analyzes how observational learning influences subjects’ conforming/non-conforming and pro-social/self-interested...

We aim to understand the role and evolution of beliefs in the indefinitely repeated prisoner's dilemma (IRPD). To do so, we elicit beliefs about the supergame strategies chosen by others. We find that heterogeneity in beliefs and changes in beliefs with experience are central to understanding...

Observational learning theories often assume that people's actions can be observed. However, in many naturally-occurring environments, individuals can choose whether to disclose their behavior to others. We provide theoretical analysis of observational learning under optional disclosure...

To identify dual process reasoning in giving, we exposed experimental participants making a charitable donation to vivid images of the charity's beneficiaries in order to stimulate affect. We hypothesized that the effect of an affective manipulation on giving is larger when we simultaneously put...

Shaun Nichols’ "Rational Rules" is the most creative and interesting response to moral nativism to appear since the naturalistic turn in moral psychology that began several decades ago. Nichols accepts the basic nativist observation that the moral rules children acquire are surprisingly rich...

A common feature of the literature on the evolution of preferences is that evolution favors nonmaterialistic preferences only if preference types are observable at least to some degree. We argue that this result is due to the assumption that in each state of the evolutionary dynamics some...

A common feature of the literature on the evolution of preferences is that evolution favors nonmaterialistic preferences only if preference types are observable at least to some degree. We argue that this result is due to the assumption that in each state of the evolutionary dynamics some...

Payments and discounts incentivize participation in many transactions about which people know little, but can learn more --- payments for medical trial participation, signing bonuses for job applicants, or price rebates on consumer durables. Who opts into the transaction when given such...

Using a lab experiment, we investigate the real-life performance of envy-free and proportional cake-cutting procedures with respect to fairness and preference manipulation. We nd that envy-free procedures, in particular Selfridge-Conway, are fairer and also are perceived as fairer than their...

We show how to bound the effect of belief-dependent preferences on choices in sequential two-player games without information about the (higher-order) beliefs of players. The approach can be applied to a class of belief-dependent preferences which includes reciprocity (Dufwenberg and...