Close your eyes and be nice: Deliberate ignorance behind pro-social choices

摘要

Avoidance of certain pieces of information, i.e. ignoring the consequences of one's choices for the wellbeing of others, has been shown to enhance selfishness. We argue that preferences for uncertainty or deliberate ignorance can also be employed by those seeking to behave pro-socially. We use a dictator game with hidden pay-offs for the dictators and allow participants to reveal their own pay-offs without a cost before making their allocation choice. We observe that a non-trivial fraction of participants do not reveal their pay-offs and choose the allocation that benefits others. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.