Does Ethics Training Neutralize the Incentives of the Prisoner's Dilemma? Evidence from a Classroom Experiment

Teaching economics has been shown to encourage students to defect in a prisoner's dilemma game. However, can ethics training reverse that effect and promote cooperation? We conducted an experiment to answer this question. We found that students who had the ethics module had higher rates of coop...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: James, Harvey S. (Author) ; Cohen, Jeffrey P. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2004
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2004, Volume: 50, Issue: 1, Pages: 53-61
Further subjects:B experimental game theory
B impact of ethics training
B prisoner's dilemma game
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Summary:Teaching economics has been shown to encourage students to defect in a prisoner's dilemma game. However, can ethics training reverse that effect and promote cooperation? We conducted an experiment to answer this question. We found that students who had the ethics module had higher rates of cooperation than students without the ethics module, even after controlling for communication and other factors expected to affect cooperation. We conclude that the teaching of ethics can mitigate the possible adverse incentives of the prisoner's dilemma, and, by implication, the adverse effects of economics and business training.
ISSN:1573-0697
Reference:Errata "Erratum (2004)"
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1023/B:BUSI.0000020869.42655.f4