Role-reversal consistency: an experimental study of the Golden Rule

Miguel A. Costa-Gomes; Yuan Ju; Jiawen Li

doi:10.1111/ecin.12708

Role-reversal consistency: an experimental study of the Golden Rule

Miguel A. Costa-Gomes
, Yuan Ju
, Jiawen Li

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We report an experiment that asks whether people in a strategic situation behave according to the Golden Rule, that is, do not treat others in ways that they find disagreeable to themselves, a property that we call role‐reversal consistency. Overall, we find that over three quarters of the subjects are role‐reversal consistent. Regression analysis suggests that this finding is not driven by players maximizing their subjective expected monetary earnings given their stated beliefs about their opponents' behavior. We find that subjects' stated beliefs and actions reveal mild projection bias.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	685-704
Journal	Economic Inquiry
Volume	57
Issue number	1
Early online date	31 Aug 2018
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12708
Publication status	Published - Jan 2019

Keywords

Role-reversal consistency
The Golden Rule
Projection bias
Elicited beliefs

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GoldenRule2018_06_final
Copyright © 2018, Western Economic Association International. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12708
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abstract = "We report an experiment that asks whether people in a strategic situation behave according to the Golden Rule, that is, do not treat others in ways that they find disagreeable to themselves, a property that we call role‐reversal consistency. Overall, we find that over three quarters of the subjects are role‐reversal consistent. Regression analysis suggests that this finding is not driven by players maximizing their subjective expected monetary earnings given their stated beliefs about their opponents' behavior. We find that subjects' stated beliefs and actions reveal mild projection bias.",

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author = "Costa-Gomes, \{Miguel A.\} and Yuan Ju and Jiawen Li",

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Role-reversal consistency: an experimental study of the Golden Rule

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