题目：Information Acquisition and Social Norm Formation

主讲人：Fabio Galeotti， Groupe d’Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Etienne

内容摘要：We investigate whether the ability of individuals to select their source of information affects the influence of social information on behavior and on empirical and normative beliefs in the ethical domain. In a large scale (N=1945) online lying game, we vary across treatments whether individuals can access empirical or normative information from others, and the presence of group identity in terms of political affiliation. We show that information search is motivated self-servingly, as a majority of individuals manage to consume more lenient information. This bias depends on whether own party is or not the source of lenient information. Selecting a more lenient source of normative information increases the willingness to lie, and affect empirical beliefs. Normative beliefs are influenced neither by empirical nor normative information. A follow-up experiment (N=2414) reveals that assigning the source of information exogenously weakens the influence of social information, with little effect of polarization.

专家介绍：

Fabio Galeotti is a research associate professor at the Groupe d’Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Etienne (GATE). He is also head of the 'experimental economics' research group at GATE. Prior joining GATE, he obtained a Doctoral Degree in Economics from the University of East Anglia (UK). His main interests lie in the field of experimental economics and behavioral economics. His main research focuses on social norms, dishonest behavior, and bargaining, and has appeared in journals like the Economic Journal, the Journal of the European Economic Association, PNAS, the European Economic Review, Management Science, JEBO,  Social Choice & Welfare, Journal of Economic Psychology and many others.