Alex Wagner, a behavioral economist from Zurich who works on moral issues, will 
be giving a paper on the disapproval of lying, looking at the influence both 
situational and personality factors. The talk will be in the Philosophy Board 
Room, 2.00pm - 4.00pm, Monday 10th November 2014. Abstract below.



The choice of honesty: An experiment regarding heterogeneous responses to 
situational social norms

We conduct a laboratory experiment in which we expose participants to 
situational social norms of approval or disapproval of lying.  Participants 
conform to the situational pressure, but there are important differences in 
individual reactions.  We document that resistance to situational norms is 
predicted by proxies for agent-specific costs of lying.  The extent and 
direction of the interaction of individual characteristics with situational 
norms and with economic incentives shed new light on why people act more 
truthfully than predicted by standard economic models.  Collectively, the 
evidence from the experiment is convincingly accounted for by a model of 
self-signaling under situational pressure.

_________________
Richard Holton
Faculty of Philosophy
University of Cambridge
Sidgwick Avenue
Cambridge CB3 9DA

Tel: +44 (0)1223 760827

http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/rjh221/index.html





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