The impact of moral motives on economic decision-making

Katharina G. Kugler, Julia Reif, Gesa-Kristina Petersen , Felix C. Brodbeck — Fri, 26 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0100

We examined the question of how “salient others” (i.e., social situations) influence economic decisions. We proposed that moral motives (which are mechanisms for relationship regulation) actively shape economic decisions in social situations. In an experiment (N = 94), we varied the decision situation (anonymous social one-shot interaction vs. non-anonymous social ongoing interaction vs. anonymous non-social one-shot interaction) and the moral motive (unity vs. proportionality). As hypothesized, moral motives influenced decision behavior only in social situations but not in non-social situations. In addition, we showed that in anonymous social one-shot situations (which are common situations for economic decisions), individuals are susceptible to situational moral motive framing (i.e., cues in the task description). In contrast, situational cues were ineffective if a moral motive was already established in the relationship between interacting partners. The results showed that moral motives matter in economic decision-making and that people infer information about morally “appropriate” behavior in anonymous social interactions from moral cues provided by the situation. The presented research offers a psychological explanation for why individuals make different decisions in economic decision situations depending on the social situation.

Supporting open access publishing in the field of dynamic decision making

Tue, 17 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0200

In contrast to the successful previous year, 2020 turned out to be difficult, not only for the earth’s population due to COVID-19 but also for JDDM with an unusually small sixth volume. Looking back at these two very different years back-to-back led us to some reflection: As the COVID-19 pandemic forcefully illustrates, dynamic decision-making (DDM) with all its complications and uncertainty is a topic of high relevance for modern societies. (From the text)

Journal of Dynamic Decision Making

The impact of moral motives on economic decision-making

Supporting open access publishing in the field of dynamic decision making