Temporal stability and psychological foundations of cooperation preferences
Journal
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
ISSN
0167-2681
ISSN-Digital
1879-1751
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2012-02
Author(s)
Abstract
A core element of economic theory is the assumption of stable preferences. We test this assumption in public goods games by repeatedly eliciting cooperation preferences in a fixed subject pool over a period of five months. We find that cooperation preferences are very stable at the aggregate level, and, to a smaller degree, at the individual level, allowing us to predict future behavior fairly accurately. Furthermore, our results provide evidence on the psychological foundations of cooperation preferences. The personality dimension ‘Agreeableness' is closely related to both the type and the stability of cooperation preferences.
Language
English
Keywords
Social preferences
Preference stability
Conditional cooperation
Free riding
Personality
Big-Five
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
HSG Profile Area
SEPS - Economic Policy
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Elsevier
Publisher place
Amsterdam
Volume
81
Number
2
Start page
664
End page
676
Pages
13
Subject(s)
Eprints ID
207070
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Name
VolkThöniRuigrok201XJEBO Temporal stability and psychological foundations of cooperation preferences.pdf
Size
474.72 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
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