Role Of Self-interest Research Articles

Who's leading whom? Mutual influences in moral decision-making between leaders and subordinates over time and the role of self-interest

Ethical behavior within groups is shaped by various situational and social factors, including hierarchy and power asymmetries. We present three preregistered studies (Ntotal = 1253) examining the social dynamics that affect ethical decision-making in hierarchical dyads, employing two novel collaborative cheating tasks. In the first two studies, we find evidence that individuals mutually influenced each other's honesty across repeated interactions, even though they had different power over the outcomes. In addition, the degree and direction of these influences were moderated by the ethical make-up of these dyads. Moreover, there were congruency effects for character judgments, wherein dyads engaging in collaborative cheating behaviors tended to evaluate each other positively, particularly in terms of competence and closeness. In a third study, manipulating whether ignoring cheating is beneficial to an observer or not, we find that observers were less inclined to verify (vs. rely on) potentially dishonest reports when they themselves benefitted from dishonest reporting. In addition, individuals benefiting from dishonest behavior formed close bonds with them, evaluating them positively and contributing more money in a subsequent public goods game. This research illuminates the intricate interplay of social dynamics, ethical orientations, and motivations in hierarchical relationships, offering insights for understanding and managing ethical decision-making in various contexts.

The role of self-interest in unethical pro-organizational behavior: A nomological network meta-analysis.

To date, the unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) literature has been guided by a prosocial perspective, which argues that people engage in UPB primarily to benefit the employers with whom they identify and have a positive social exchange. According to this perspective, employees who are characteristically self-interested are less likely to engage in UPB. However, recent evidence suggests self-interest may play a larger role in motivating UPB than originally theorized. To clarify this controversy, we offer two different, but not necessarily mutually exclusive, perspectives of UPB-one in which UPB is driven primarily by prosocial motives and one in which it is driven primarily by self-interest. We tested which of these accounts of UPB was more strongly supported by comparing UPB's relationships with two nomological networks: one containing relatively prosocially motivated constructs and the other containing relatively self-interest-motivated constructs. Two of the eight hypotheses from the prosocial perspective were supported, while seven of the eight hypotheses from the self-interest perspective were supported. Additionally, the average absolute value of UPB's correlations with prosocial perspective constructs was .09, while the comparable average correlation with self-interest perspective constructs was .33. Thus, the results favored the self-interest perspective. We discuss how these findings change our theoretical understanding of UPB by acknowledging both its prosocial and self-interest motivations, and we accordingly propose a revised definition for UPB that allows for both of these motivations. We also examined more broadly the relationship between UPB and other constructs to provide a comprehensive meta-analytic overview of this literature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The net tax-benefit position and the role of self-interest in attitudes towards the welfare state

This paper examines to what extent the actual net tax-benefit position (redistribution outcome) affects support towards the welfare state besides the typical indicator for self-interest, income. This paper then explores how own and partner’s socio-demographic factors affect support based on self-assessed social risks while ideology and beliefs mitigate self-interested judgements.
 This paper integrates tax and benefit information from Luxembourg Income Study and attitudes data in European Social Survey using Statistical Matching. The technique integrates target variables that are distinctively observed in two sources using common variables which best explain the target variables in each data set. Using the linked data set, it adopts a multi-level model to explore institutional and individual factors. At the macro level, it investigates progressivity and sizes of taxes and transfers of nineteen European countries. Also, household arrangements including living with children and/or partner and demographics including age, gender, education, occupation, and own economic outlook are examined.
 Using a more direct indicator for self-interest, the net tax-benefit position, expected results of the analysis are in three folds. First, those who pay more taxes and receive less benefits are less supportive of the welfare state despite the same income level. Second, those who are more likely to benefit from the welfare state are more likely to be supportive of the welfare state. For example, those who live with children may be more supportive due to higher likelihood to receive family benefits. Similarly, subjective assessment to benefit from the welfare state due to higher social risks such as unemployment or sickness leads to more positive attitudes. Third, those who are politically left and have less meritocratic values are likely to be more supportive.
 Due to the data limitation, the impact of income-tax-benefit positions on welfare attitudes was not directly measured. This paper contributes to this discussion using the Statistical Matching and Multi-level modelling which explores interactions of actual net tax-benefit position, potential benefits based on social position/risks, and mitigating beliefs.

Deserving more? A vignette study on the role of self-interest and deservingness opinions for popular support for wealth taxation in Germany

Abstract This paper investigates which factors shape popular support for the taxation of wealth in Germany, a country with one of the highest levels of wealth inequality in Western Europe. Although public support for progressive taxation in general is strong, no tax on personal net wealth is currently levied. Against this backdrop, we ask how objective and subjective self-interest, information about wealth inequality and deservingness valuations regarding the wealthy affect popular support for a personal wealth tax. Particular attention is paid to the interaction between self-interest and deservingness. Using original survey data and a vignette design, we find that subjective self-interest is more important than objective self-interest, and that providing information on aggregate wealth inequality can shift the attitudes of those who are otherwise indifferent in favour of wealth taxation. Furthermore, deservingness valuations impact support for taxation in important ways. Factors indicating meritocratic wealth accumulation reduce support, and this is especially pronounced among low-status respondents. By contrast, while non-meritocratic factors increase support for taxation, these effects are largely off-set in privileged groups. Altogether, these findings suggest that self-interest and deservingness valuations impact attitudes towards wealth taxation in opposing directions, and that providing information to those otherwise indifferent might increase redistributive preferences.

Free to choose or free to lose? Understanding individual attitudes toward paternalism

AbstractIn the past decades, behavioral economics has credibly identified numerous decision-making biases leading people to make choices they would not have made if better informed about the long-term consequences of their actions. This has given rise to a new reason for government interventions: internalities. In contrast to traditional reasons for government intervention, such as redistribution and externalities, overcoming internalities often involves the use of paternalistic policies. We investigate theoretically and empirically the formation of attitudes toward paternalistic policies. Theoretically, we focus on the role of self-interest and distinguish between self-interest as construed for the rational decision-maker, self-interest when self-control problems are present, and self-interest when procedural or expressive elements, such as autonomy, matter. Empirically, we employ two novel data sets: a Danish survey on political opinion combined with administrative data on actual behavior and a large-scale cross-country survey to analyze attitudes toward paternalistic policies in the health and financial domains. We show that targets of paternalism are more opposed to paternalism than non-targets both in Denmark and across nine Western democracies and rely on our theoretical priors to explore mechanisms that can explain these attitudes.

Welfare Attitudes in Crisis: The Role of Ideology in Healthcare Satisfaction in Portugal and Ireland

AbstractPrevious studies have documented that crisis trends are associated with negative changes in healthcare satisfaction. Yet, most research has focused on the role of self-interest and little is known about the ideological dimension of these changes. The article investigates this underexplored topic by examining the ideological divide in satisfaction with healthcare in two countries strongly hit by the recent economic crisis, Portugal and Ireland. The results of the empirical analysis based on the European Social Survey data from 2008 to 2015 show that ideology played a role in shaping healthcare satisfaction in both countries. In Portugal, healthcare satisfaction declined more for the left- than for the right-oriented, while in Ireland the right-oriented demonstrated a stronger decline in satisfaction than the left-oriented. In addition, the results identify an interaction between ideology and self-interest, showing that ideology trumps self-interest among the low income, but the opposite is true among the high income groups. Overall, these findings suggest that there is a substantive ideology-driven dimension in public satisfaction with health systems and point to the need for theoretical integration of different approaches in the analysis of healthcare attitudes in the crisis context.

Dissecting the "do good and do well" phenomenon: The case of the UK's market for social investment.

The developing discourse around social investment and impact investing makes strong claims regarding the possibility of both furthering one's own interests while simultaneously acting for the benefit of others-"doing good and doing well". Such claims are central to UK- and US-centric attempts to reform capitalism in the face of multiple global crises. This article uses Foucault's writing on (neo)liberal governmentality to analyze a particular manifestation of the logic of "doing good and doing well": the attempt to build a market for social investment in the UK between 2010 and 2016, a project closely related to the development of the broader impact investment movement. Building on a close reading of Foucault's writing on the role of self-interest, it is argued that two incompatible versions of social investment are present within the development of the market: one (the "innovative version") that assumes purpose and profit are fully compatible, and one (the "principled version") that assumes it is important to maintain a boundary between them. The relevance of these findings and the approach used is discussed in relation to the social studies of market, and ongoing efforts to develop a critique of "doing good and doing well".

Let's stick together: The role of self-interest and ideological beliefs for supporting a ‘solidaristic’ health policy in Norway

Previous studies of health system legitimacy have almost exclusively paid attention to patterns of service satisfaction and preference for state involvement. These two dimensions are related to substantial and procedural justice; i.e. the value of a certain policy and the way it is implemented. This study contributes to the research field by focusing on a third dimension that have been little studied so far: the willingness of citizens to contribute on a solidaristic basis. This dimension was captured through three health policy preferences: public healthcare spending willingness, opposition to co-payments and opposition to private health insurance. Building on the literature on welfare state legitimacy, the empirical model distinguished between two sets of predictors to explain individual differences: self-interest and ideological belief. Old age, poor health and poor economy is positively associated with opposition to co-payments for “self-inflicted” diseases, while low education and poor health is positively related to support for more public spending. Increasing age is furthermore positively associated with opposing co-payments and easier uptake of insurance. Liberal-conservative voters are less willing to spend more on healthcare but more willing to increase the use of co-payments and insurance.

The Role of Self-Interest in Deliberation: A Theory of Deliberative Capital.

How do successful deliberations unfold? What happens when they unravel? In this article, I propose that we think of the dynamics of participant engagement within deliberation as series of self-interested and reciprocal investments in and divestments from deliberative capital. This article has three parts. First, I draw on the literatures on deliberative democracy and social capital to outline a theory of deliberative capital. I highlight the important role self-interest plays in the process of those initial investments – instances of engagement in positive deliberative behaviours. Second, drawing from my experience as a facilitator, I give an account of the particular indicators of investments and divestments that we might expect to see in a given deliberative engagement. Third, I briefly outline two innovative facilitation techniques that can be utilized at the beginning or during a deliberative process that trigger self-interest, which incentivizes investments and discourages divestments.

Deservingness, Conditionality and Public Perceptions of Work Disability: The Influence of Economic Inequality

This article contributes to classical debates about the role of self-interest and social norms in shaping the moral economy of work and welfare by incorporating economic inequalities in the analysis of opinions about welfare deservingness. The relationship between inequality and perceptions of work conditionality has received little attention in previous studies. This article addresses this issue by investigating the association between economic inequalities and perceived work limitations of disabled people experiencing various conditions related to health using vignettes from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. The results show that people living in areas with higher levels of wealth inequality, but not income inequality, were more likely to rate the vignettes as limited in the amount of work that individuals can do due to health problems. This finding casts doubts on the crucial role attributed to self-interest as the central mechanism linking economic inequality and solidaristic, pro-welfare attitudes.

The Complexity of Policy Preferences: Examining Self-interest, Group-Interest, and Race Consciousness Across Race and Political Ideology

Research on attitudes toward racial policies has often been limited to a single racial group (e.g., either Whites or Blacks). These studies often focus on the role of self-interest, group-interest, and race consciousness, but this work has operationalized these concepts in different ways when studying White or Black respondents. Using data from a study in which Whites and Blacks living in Chicago were asked their attitudes toward affirmative action, we build on this body of research by using common measures of self-reported self-interest, group-interest, and race consciousness to predict support for affirmative action. We also examine whether the effects of these determinants are moderated by political ideology. We find that self-reported self-interest influences support for affirmative action among Black conservatives, but not among other respondents. Self-reported group-interest, however, has significant effects that differ between Blacks and Whites and across liberals, moderates, and conservatives. We also find that race consciousness affects respondents’ attitudes toward affirmative action, but that this effect is moderated by political ideology.

Bribery: Behavioral Drivers of Distorted Decisions

We experimentally investigate behavioral drivers of bribery, focusing on the role of self-interest, reciprocity, and moral costs associated with distorting judgment. In our laboratory experiment, two participants compete for a prize; a referee picks the winner. Participants can bribe the referee. When the referee can keep only the winner's bribe, bribes distort her judgment. When the referee keeps the bribes regardless of the winner, bribes no longer influence her decision. An experiment in an Indian market confirms these results. These findings imply that our participants are influenced by bribes out of self-interest, and not because of a desire to reciprocate. Further evidence shows that self-interest guides decisions to a greater extent when referees have scope for avoiding the moral costs associated with distorting judgment. As a result, limiting referees’ ability to form self-serving evaluations can significantly reduce the effectiveness of bribes. (Less)

Adam Smith Was Consistent in Both the Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations on the Role of the Concept of Self Interest: Das Utilitarian Economist View Is the Problem

Adam Smith was very consistent in both the Wealth of Nations and in The Theory of Moral Sentiments concerning the role of self interest in both books. Like all advocates of virtue ethics, the first virtue to be mastered had to be the Virtue of Prudence, which required that the necessary condition of being able to take care of one’s self and family first, one’s self interest, had to be met first before any other virtue could be satisfactorily mastered and applied. Smith assumed that readers of the Wealth of Nations had previously read his The Theory of Moral Sentiments first, so that they understood that the butcher, brewer, and baker all had to succeed financially first before they could consider the interests of others second. Only after a clear and large surplus had been built up by the butcher, brewer, and baker from their small businesses would it be possible to meet the interests of others through benevolence. There is simply no contradiction or inconsistency between Smith’s position, made all through the The Theory of Moral Sentiments, that prudence is the most important virtue and that all other virtues come second or after prudence (self interest). Smith though it obvious that we get our dinner from the prudent behavior (own interest or self love) of the butcher, brewer, and baker and not from the virtue of Benevolence because Benevolence can only be practiced if the butcher, brewer, and baker has been successful in his business in amassing a surplus. The butcher, brewer, and baker can’t practice Benevolence if they are suffering losses or merely breaking even. It is the Utilitarian economists of the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries who created the myth that Smith had been inconsistent and/or had made contradictions in the two books, because these utilitarian economists rejected Virtue ethics and sought to place Bentham’s conflicting definition of self(ish) interests in place of Smith’s self interests in the Wealth of Nations. This was accomplished by the deliberate misinterpretation of the butcher, brewer, and baker quotation to support their claim that Smith had created an Invisible Hand of the Market force, to replace Hobbes’s government force, as the force that was the social institution that regulated the conflicting self(ish) interests of all citizens in the pursuit of the virtue of justice, so as to prevent the war of all against all. Utilitarian economists claimed that Smith’s Invisible Hand of the Market was a natural force, whose results were due to completely voluntary exchange actions, whereas government force was unnatural and involuntary. Smith’s mythical Invisible Hand of the Market became the natural reconciler of all conflicting self(ish) interests. Thus, there was really no need for government at all.

The attitudes of the economic elite toward social redistribution: the role of self-interest and solidarity

Traditional class theories underestimate the ability of welfare institutions to foster support for social redistribution among the economic elite. Analyses show that the economic elite is more opposed to social redistribution than ordinary employees who have no authority in the social division of labor. However, the relationship between economic elite position and attitudes toward social redistribution is relatively weak. Nor is the economic elite instinctively opposed to the political views of the working class – or instinctively in favor of the views of the upper class. The economic elite is both aware of its own interests and supportive of underprivileged groups in society. Finally, the analyses show that personal income mediates the relationship between economic elite position and attitudes toward social redistribution. The empirical analyses are performed on a (postal) class survey fielded in 2015 (n = 1,032).

DETERMINANTS OF TAX FAIRNESS PERCEPTION AND THE ROLE OF SELFINTEREST - RESULTS FROM TWO GERMAN SURVEYS

This paper discusses why citizens perceive a tax system as fair or unfair. We review the literature about tax fairness and tax preferences. From this literature, we extract the most common explanations for tax fairness perception. Most important are the topics of vertical and horizontal fairness, complexity and the discussion between the benefit and the ability-to-pay-principle. Within these topics, we deal also with very current topics like the controversy between capital and labor taxation or the affluence tax. To answer the questions how the tax fairness is perceived in Germany and what criteria are most useful to explain these attitudes, we conduct two surveys. One is a convenience sample, by the help of SoSciPanel a German online respondent pool, and the other is a student survey. Also, the role of self-interest in these aspects is addressed. Especially we want to shed light on the role of income expectations by the difference between the full population survey and the student survey, since the latter group is more homogenous in actual income.

The role of self-interest in elite bargaining.

One of the best-known and most replicated laboratory results in behavioral economics is that bargainers frequently reject low offers, even when it harms their material self-interest. This finding could have important implications for international negotiations on many problems facing humanity today, because models of international bargaining assume exactly the opposite: that policy makers are rational and self-interested. However, it is unknown whether elites who engage in diplomatic bargaining will similarly reject low offers because past research has been based almost exclusively on convenience samples of undergraduates, members of the general public, or small-scale societies rather than highly experienced elites who design and bargain over policy. Using a unique sample of 102 policy and business elites who have an average of 21 y of practical experience conducting international diplomacy or policy strategy, we show that, compared with undergraduates and the general public, elites are actually more likely to reject low offers when playing a standard "ultimatum game" that assesses how players bargain over a fixed resource. Elites with more experience tend to make even higher demands, suggesting that this tendency only increases as policy makers advance to leadership positions. This result contradicts assumptions of rational self-interested behavior that are standard in models of international bargaining, and it suggests that the adoption of global agreements on international trade, climate change, and other important problems will not depend solely on the interests of individual countries, but also on whether these accords are seen as equitable to all member states.

A Response to Claude Hillinger's 'Adam Smith's Argument for the Existence of an Invisible Hand'

This paper discusses briefly Adam Smith metaphoric use of the “invisible hand” chapter of Wealth of Nations and shows his use of the famous metaphor conforms to the proper role of metaphors in English grammar, as he taught his students. It also comments on the role of self-interest in society. Far from hinting verbally at the grand mathematical theories of “General Equilibrium” or the “Pareto Theorem, Smith’s assertion was confined to a modest quantitative arithmetical change in “annual revenue and employment. It concludes with comments on Claude Hillinger’s interesting, though ultimately flawed, version of Adam Smith’s supposed argument for “invisible hands.

Introduction: Symposium on Social Norms, Self-Interest and Legal Compliance, Jerusalem, May 2007

Abstract The papers presented in this volume are based on the conference "Social Norms, Self-Interest and Legal Compliance" which took place in Bar-Ilan University and Hebrew University in May 2007. The conference focused on several key themes in the social norms literature, including critical approaches to the role of self-interest in social norms and cooperation models; comparative discussions of the various methodologies used in this literature (e.g. ethnographies, game-based experiments, experimental surveys); the nature of the effect of legal regulation on social norms; behavioral accounts of legal instruments that may enhance social cooperation; and explorations of the potential contributions of the social and cognitive psychology sciences to economic models of social norms. In this volume, we present six of the conference papers. All submitted papers were subject to anonymous peer review.

Resources, Group Conflict and Symbols: Explaining Anti-Immigration Hostility in Britain

This article analyses the causes of variation in attitudes to immigration policy in the UK. The key theoretical approaches emphasised are: the role of self-interest; group conflict over resources; and group conflict over important symbols of Britishness. The connection between perceptions of immigration and crime is also investigated. Based on the 2003 British Social Attitudes Survey, the findings indicate that self-interest has very little bearing on opposition to immigration and that British citizens instead appear to be most concerned with threats to ingroup resources posed by immigration, threats to the shared customs and traditions of British society (particularly those posed by Muslims) and – to a lesser extent – the potential for increased crime that may result from immigration.

Trust and reciprocity in inter-individual versus inter-group interactions: The effects of social influence, group dynamics, and perspective biases

Using an experimental trust game, I examine whether the perspectives and behavior of group representatives and consensus groups differ from those of the same individuals in an analogous inter-individual situation. A primary goal of this research is to extend past work on trust and reciprocity by examining the impact of the social contexts within which social interactions are characteristically embedded. Specifically, this research concerns whether norms and dynamics of trust and reciprocity differ in the contexts of inter-individual and inter-group interactions. First, I examine whether dynamics of trust and reciprocity differ in various inter-group interactions where inter-group decisions are operationalized as 1) autonomous group representatives, i.e., individuals who are given the responsibility of unilaterally making a decision on behalf of a three-person group engaging with a group representative of another such group; and 2) consensus groups, i.e., group members making a consensus trust or reciprocity decision for their groups via a collective process with another such group. Results of these studies show that 1) people trust less and reciprocate less when responsible for a group or organizational decision as autonomous group representatives; 2) consensus groups do not differ from individuals in their level of trust but show dramatically less reciprocity. The group consensus mechanism in fact produced by far the lowest reciprocity level, significantly lower than that exhibited by either individuals or autonomous group representatives. Thus, inter-group trust and reciprocity dynamics are not readily inferable from their inter-individual counterparts. Moreover, an important implication is emerging here: the extent and direction of the discrepancy between individual and group choices in regard to trust and reciprocity levels and possibly other social preferences in general may depend importantly on the precise details of the group decision-making mechanism, for example whether decisions are made consensually, by majority vote, or by a group leader or representative. In addition to examining the level of trust and reciprocity that occur in these various situations, I also studied, using both behavioral and questionnaire data, the roles of self-interest, social influence, and group dynamics in trust and reciprocity perceptions and behavior. The results showed that there exist discrepancies between behavioral forecasts and the actual behavior, and that trusting behavior is driven strongly by expectation of level of reciprocation, while reciprocating behavior is driven strongly by the difference between trust expectation and actual trust received.