Immoral criminals? An experimental study of social preferences among prisoners
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Date
2011-09Metadata
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- Discussion papers (SAM) [667]
Abstract
This paper studies the pro-social preferences of criminals by comparing
the behavior of a group of prisoners in a lab experiment with the behavior
of a benchmark group recruited from the general population. We find a
striking similarity in the importance the two groups attach to pro-social
preferences in both in strategic and non-strategic situations. This result
also holds when the two groups interact. Data from a large internet experiment,
matched with official criminal records, suggest that our main finding
from the lab experiment is not in
influenced by the additional scrutiny experienced
by participants in prison.