Immoral criminals? An experimental study of social preferences among prisoners

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 preferenc...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Birkeland, Sigbjørn (Author) ; Tungodden, Bertil (Author) ; Sørensen, Erik Ø. (Author) ; Cappelen, Alexander W. (Author)
Format: Electronic Book
Language:English
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
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Summary: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 influenced by the additional scrutiny experienced by participants in prison.Pro-social preferences; Criminals; Lab experiment