Paying to Be Nice: Consistency and Costly Prosocial Behavior
Gneezy and colleagues proposed that the cost of an initial prosocial act affects whether people go on behaving prosocially. A costly act signals a prosocial identity, and people then act in line with that self-image, whereas a costless act signals little, so later behaviour is less consistent and may decline, as in moral licensing. A laboratory experiment and a large field experiment support the account.
Gneezy and colleagues proposed that the cost of an initial prosocial act affects whether people go on behaving prosocially. A costly act signals a prosocial identity, and people then act in line with that self-image, whereas a costless act signals little, so later behaviour is less consistent and may decline, as in moral licensing. A laboratory experiment and a large field experiment support the account.
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Gneezy, A., Imas, A., Brown, A., Nelson, L. D., & Norton, M. I. (2012). Paying to be nice: Consistency and costly prosocial behavior. Management Science, 58(1), 179-187. doi:10.1287/mnsc.1110.1437.