The dramatic shift from traditional pension plans to participant-directed 401(k) plans has increased the decision-making responsibility of individual investors for their own retirement planning. With this shift comes increasing evidence that investors are making poor decisions in choosing how...

In this paper, I review the theoretical and empirical scholarship bearing on the notion of being a sucker. I suggest that there is a social norm against being a sucker, and that a number of experimental results could be reconsidered in light of this quot;sucker norm.quot; First, I establish, at...

Over the last thirty years, legal scholars have increasingly deployed experimental studies, particularly hypothetical scenarios, to test intuitions about legal reasoning and behavior. That movement has accelerated in the last decade, facilitated in large part by cheap and convenient Internet...

This paper presents four experiments testing the prediction that assignment of contract rights erodes the moral obligation to perform. The first three studies used an experimental laboratory game designed to model contractual exchange. Players in the games were less selfish with a...

This paper asks when people think of foreclosure as a penalty for a serious legal and moral violation, and when they think that handing over a house is an acceptable alternate performance of the loan obligation. I use experimental methods from psychology to demonstrate the effects of social...

This article presents four experiments testing the prediction that assignment of contract rights erodes the moral obligation to perform. The first three studies used an experimental laboratory game designed to model contractual exchange. Players in the games were less selfish with a previously...

Although assent is the doctrinal and theoretical hallmark of contract, its relevance for form contracts has been drastically undermined by the overwhelming evidence that no one reads standard terms. Until now, most political and academic discussions of this phenomenon have acknowledged the truth...

This paper presents results from three experiments offering evidence that parties see breach of contract as a form of exploitation, making disappointed promisees into “suckers.” In psychology, being a sucker turns on a three-part definition: betrayal, inequity, and intention. We used...

The moral and social norms that bear on contracts of adhesion suggest a deep ambivalence. Contracts are perceived as serious moral obligations, and yet they must be taken lightly or everyday commerce would be impossible. Most people see consent to boilerplate as less meaningful than consent to...