Do good deeds make bad people ?

Sophie Clot (1, 2) , Gilles Grolleau (1) , Lisette Ibanez (1)

1 LAMETA - Laboratoire Montpelliérain d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée
2 Montpellier SupAgro - Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier

A limited but growing literature contends that licensing can operate by committing to a virtuous act in a preceding choice, which reduces negative self-attributions associated with donating less or behaving less virtuously in the succeeding decision. Psychological research and behavioral economics strongly suggest that pre-existing intrinsic motivations of individuals play a major role in determining their subsequent choices when faced with a voluntary or mandatory virtuous ‘act’. In this paper, we report the results of a pilot experimental study examining licensing effect in the environmental realm, using a 2 (mandatory or voluntary nature of the virtuous act) X 2 (intrinsically or non-intrinsically motivated individuals) between subjects design. We found that intrinsically motivated and non-intrinsically motivated subjects reacted adversely to the two policy scenarios. The licensing effect occurs when combining intrinsically (resp., non-intrinsically) motivated individuals and mandatory (resp. voluntary) conditions.

Mots clés: behavior; licensing effect; environmental policies; behavioural incentives; incentive; economic behaviour; human behaviour

Mots clés: comportement économique; incitation; politique de l'environnement; comportement humain; comportement

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Sophie Clot, Gilles Grolleau, Lisette Ibanez. Do good deeds make bad people ?. 2011. ⟨hal-01485471⟩