The DOI matches its Crossref record; 11 of the 11 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Identity, Morals, and Taboos: Beliefs as Assets *
Abstract
We develop a theory of moral behavior, individual and collective, based on a general model of identity in which people care about “who they are” and infer their own values from past choices. The model sheds light on many empirical puzzles inconsistent with earlier approaches. Identity investments respond nonmonotonically to acts or threats, and taboos on mere thoughts arise to protect beliefs about the “priceless” value of certain social assets. High endowments trigger escalating commitment and a treadmill effect, while competing identities can cause dysfunctional capital destruction. Social interactions induce both social and antisocial norms of contribution, sustained by respectively shunning free riders or do-gooders.
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Citations
Cites
Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans.
Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.69.5.797 · Cited by 9,020
Bem, D. J. (1972) · Advances in Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60024-6 · Cited by 5,241 · cited 1×
“See, e.g., Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) on cognitive dissonance and, especially, Bem (1972) on self-perception.”
BackgroundCooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments
Fehr, E., & Gächter, S. (2000) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.90.4.980 · Cited by 4,547
Cognitive consequences of forced compliance.
Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959) · The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/h0041593 · Cited by 2,945
The Dishonesty of Honest People: A Theory of Self-Concept Maintenance
Mazar, N., Amir, O., & Ariely, D. (2008) · Journal of Marketing Research · doi:10.1509/jmkr.45.6.633 · Cited by 2,875
Knee-deep in the big muddy: a study of escalating commitment to a chosen course of action
Staw, B. M. (1976) · Organizational Behavior and Human Performance · doi:10.1016/0030-5073(76)90005-2 · Cited by 2,061 · cited 1×
“A manager will thus keep throwing good money after bad on a doomed project, as in the experiments of Staw (1976).”
MethodAntisocial Punishment Across Societies
Herrmann, B., Thöni, C., & Gächter, S. (2008) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1153808 · Cited by 2,038
Tetlock, P. E., Kristel, O. V., Elson, S. B., Green, M. C., & Lerner, J. S. (2000) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.78.5.853 · Cited by 1,400
Moral credentials and the expression of prejudice.
Monin, B., & Miller, D. T. (2001) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.81.1.33 · Cited by 1,086 · cited 3×
“Yet, in different settings the same subject pools display " moral credentialing " , acting as if an initial good behavior (again, exogenously induced) provided a license to misbehave later on (Monin and Miller 2001).”
BackgroundInfluentialIn-Group or Out-Group Extemity: Importance of the Threatened Social Identity
Branscombe, N. R., Wann, D. L., Noel, J. G., & Coleman, J. (1993) · Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin · doi:10.1177/0146167293194003 · Cited by 334
Cited by
Individual and Corporate Social Responsibility
BÉNABOU, R., & TIROLE, J. (2010) · Economica · doi:10.1111/j.1468-0335.2009.00843.x · Cited by 2,237
Self-citationThe Scope of Cooperation: Values and Incentives*
Tabellini, G. (2008) · Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1162/qjec.2008.123.3.905 · Cited by 1,049
Mindful Economics: The Production, Consumption, and Value of Beliefs
Bénabou, R., & Tirole, J. (2016) · Journal of Economic Perspectives · doi:10.1257/jep.30.3.141 · Cited by 817
Self-citationNormative foundations of human cooperation
Fehr, E., & Schurtenberger, I. (2018) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-018-0385-5 · Cited by 434
Homo Moralis--Preference Evolution Under Incomplete Information and Assortative Matching
(2013) · Econometrica · doi:10.3982/ecta10637 · Cited by 371
Metadata
- Authors
- Bénabou, R., & Tirole, J.
- Venue
- The Quarterly Journal of Economics
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2011-05
- Volume
- 126
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 805-855
- ISSN
- 0033-5533 (ISSN-L)
- 1531-4650
- OpenAlex
- W2167051786
- Cited by
- 1,042
- References
- 11
- FWCI
- 102.98
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
