Publications

2012
Article

Does Power Corrupt or Enable?: When and Why Power Facilitates Self-interested Behavior

By: K. A. DeCelles, D.S. DeRue, J.D. Margolis and T.L. Ceranic

Does power corrupt a moral identity, or does it enable a moral identity to emerge? Drawing from the power literature, we propose that the psychological experience of power, although often associated with promoting self-interest, is associated with greater self-interest... View Details

Keywords: Power; Moral Identity; Self-interested Behavior; Moral Awareness; Commons Dilemma; Moral Sensibility; Behavior; Power and Influence

10 Sep 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Feeling Good about Giving: The Benefits (and Costs) of Self-Interested Charitable Behavior

Keywords: by Lalin Anik, Lara B. Aknin, Michael I. Norton & Elizabeth W. Dunn

2021
Article

Don't Get It or Don't Spread It: Comparing Self-interested versus Prosocial Motivations for COVID-19 Prevention Behaviors

By: Jillian J. Jordan, Erez Yoeli and David Rand

COVID-19 prevention behaviors may be seen as self-interested or prosocial. Using American samples from MTurk and Prolific (total n = 6,850), we investigated which framing is more effective—and motivation is stronger—for fostering prevention behavior intentions. We... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Prevention; Prosocial Motivation; Health Pandemics; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives

2009
Working Paper

Feeling Good about Giving: The Benefits (and Costs) of Self-Interested Charitable Behavior

By: Lalin Anik, Lara B. Aknin, Michael I. Norton and Elizabeth W. Dunn

While lay intuitions and pop psychology suggest that helping others leads to higher levels of happiness, the existing evidence only weakly supports this causal claim: Research in psychology, economics, and neuroscience exploring the benefits of charitable giving has... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Research; Behavior; Happiness; Motivation and Incentives

2010
Chapter

Feeling Good about Giving: The Benefits (and Costs) of Self-interested Charitable Behavior

By: L. Anik, L. B. Aknin, M. I. Norton and E. W. Dunn

While lay intuitions and pop psychology suggest that helping others leads to higher levels of happiness, the existing evidence only weakly supports this causal claim: research in psychology, economics, and neuroscience exploring the benefits of charitable giving has... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Cost vs Benefits; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Outcome or Result; Relationships; Research; Behavior; Happiness; Motivation and Incentives

Article

Good Lamps Are the Best Police: Darkness Increases Dishonesty and Self-Interested Behavior

By: C. B. Zhong, V. K. Bohns and F. Gino

Keywords: Behavior

January 2023 (Revised November 2023)
Technical Note

Ethical Analysis: Honesty and Self-Interest

By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Christopher Diak

Information asymmetry is pervasive in business and can often confer great advantage. This note distinguishes forms of deceptive behavior in the face of information asymmetry and aims to help students analyze their impermissibility. View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Analysis; Balance and Stability

Educators

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April 2014
Article

Between Self-interest and Reciprocity: The Social Bright Side of Self-control Failure

By: Eliran Halali, Yoella Bereby-Meyer and Nachshon Meiran

Despite the importance of reciprocity in many areas of social life, little is known about possible factors affecting it and its interplay with the self-interest motive to maximize one’s own gains. In this study, we examined the role of cognitive control in reciprocal... View Details

Keywords: Cognitive Control; Ego Depletion; Fairness; Trust Game; Ultimatum Game; Reciprocity; Self-control Failure

01 Jan 2015
Working Paper Summaries

Lobbying Behavior of Governmental Entities: Evidence from Public Pension Accounting Rules

Keywords: by Abigail M. Allen & Reining Petacchi

30 Jul 2018
Research & Ideas

Why Ethical People Become Unethical Negotiators

other side. Sometimes negotiators stretch the truth unintentionally, falling prey to what Bazerman and his colleagues call “bounded ethicality” by engaging in unethical behavior that contradicts their values without knowing it. Why does... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

28 Apr 2021
News

Get the Message: Reduce Water Use

2018
Working Paper

Thanks for Nothing: Expressing Gratitude Invites Exploitation by Competitors

By: Jeremy Yip, Kelly Kiyeon Lee, Cindy Chan and Alison Wood Brooks

Previous research has revealed that expressing gratitude motivates prosocial behavior in cooperative relationships. However, expressing gratitude in competitive interactions may operate differently. Across five studies, we demonstrate that individuals interacting with... View Details

Keywords: Gratitude; Forgiveness; Negotiations; Emotion; Emotions; Behavior; Negotiation; Ethics

31 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

The Most Powerful Workplace Motivator

little we found in terms of the economic reasons for doing this," Larkin says. "By far, the biggest predictor of this behavior was fear of being socially inferior to one's peers." (Those tempted to boost a paper's usage stats should note... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

2013
Article

Is It All about the Self? The Effect of Self-control Depletion on Ultimatum Game Proposers

By: Eliran Halali, Yoella Bereby-Meyer and Axel Ockenfels

In the ultimatum-game, as in many real-life social exchange situations, the selfish motive to maximize own gains conflicts with fairness preferences. In the present study we manipulated the availability of cognitive-control resources for ultimatum-game proposers to... View Details

2009
Working Paper

The Devil Wears Prada: Effects of Exposure to Luxury Goods on Cognition and Decision Making

By: Roy Y.J. Chua and Xi Zou

Although the concept of luxury has been widely discussed in social theories and marketing research, relatively little research has directly examined the psychological consequences of exposure to luxury goods. This paper demonstrates that mere exposure to luxury goods... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Ethics; Marketing; Behavior; Power and Influence; Luxury

2011
Working Paper

Naiveté and Cynicism in Negotiations and Other Competitive Contexts

By: Chia-Jung Tsay, Lisa L. Shu and Max Bazerman

A wealth of literature documents how the common failure to think about the self-interests of others contributes to suboptimal outcomes. Yet sometimes, an excess of cynicism appears to lead us to over-think the actions of others and make negative attributions about... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Negotiation; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking; Perspective; Trust; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage

20 Apr 2011
Research & Ideas

Blind Spots: We’re Not as Ethical as We Think

and actual behavior, according to the authors. The rapidly developing field of behavioral ethics has described a decision-making process whereby we recognize what we should do—give equal weight to job candidates of all races, for... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

October 2012
Article

Honesty Requires Time (and Lack of Justifications)

By: Shaul Shalvi, Ori Eldar and Yoella Bereby-Meyer

Recent research suggests that refraining from cheating in tempting situations requires self-control, which indicates that serving self-interest is an automatic tendency. However, evidence also suggests that people cheat to the extent that they can justify their... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Cognition and Thinking

2013
Working Paper

Managers and Market Capitalism

By: Rebecca Henderson and Karthik Ramanna

In a capitalist system based on free markets, do managers have responsibilities to the system itself? If they do, should these responsibilities shape their behavior when they are engaging in the political process in an attempt to structure the institutions of... View Details

Keywords: Market Design; Economic Systems; Managerial Roles; Government and Politics