Economics Webinar (2021-12)

Topic: Uncertainty Motivates Morality: Evidence and Theory

Speaker: Songfa Zhong, National University of Singapore

Time: Tuesday, June 15, 1:00- 2:30 pm

Location: Microsoft Teams

Abstract

Uncertainty motivates a wide range of human behavior, as individuals are disposed to pursue a feeling of certainty. We propose that uncertainty motivates morality, and test the hypothesis by examining moral decisions when individuals face an uncertain situation compared with all degenerate certain situations. We find that uncertainty drives individuals to share more in a dictator game experiment and lie less in a dice game experiment. As standard models of choice under uncertainty cannot accommodate these observations, we propose a theoretical framework whereby individuals perceive a connection between the morality of their behavior and the outcome resulting from uncertainty.

Biography

钟松发，成人直播 1999级本科校友，现任新加坡国立大学经济系长聘副教授和院长讲席。研究方向为神经经济学，行为经济学和实验经济学。目前已在American Economic Review, Econometrica, International Economic Review, Review of Economic and Statistics, Journal of European Economics and Association, Management Science等国际著名经济学期刊,以及Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Neuron, Neuroimage等国际著名交叉学科和神经学期刊上发表二十多篇论文。

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