Third-party funding:
Individual social responsibility, bank risk, and the impact of regulation. Diligentia Foundation.
Co-author: Melina Ludolph.
Graduate Program "Navigating the Chaos of Innovation and Transformation", funded by the state Sachsen-Anhalt and the ESF+.
Jointly with Stefanie Börner, Michael Dick, Kai Heinrich, Elmar Lukas, Heike Ohlbrecht, Kersten Sven Roth and Marlin Ulmer.
Work in Progress:
Removing the human in human resources: The adverse effect of AI use in the recruitment process
Co-authors: Kai Heinrich and Kim Siegling
In this study we test how individuals react to the use of AI in different stages in the recruitment process. We do so by conducting an online experiment on Prolific with about 1500 participants. Therefore, we do not only randomly allocate participants to one out of four treatments, we also differentiate based on their highest educational level and work experience to conduct the experiment for two different versions; one job advertisement for high-skilled employees and one job advertisement that requires significantly less skills. Our main finding is that the use of AI reduces individuals' willingness to apply, for the high-skilled job even if the AI is used in the preselection phase only. Whereas the effect is much stronger for individuals with lower technological affinity, the effect also remains significant for those with a rather high affinity towards new technologies. For the low-skilled job, the negative effect appears only if the AI is also used in the interview stage of the recruitment process. The effect on participants' willingness to apply seems to be mediated by the perceived fairness of the process, which is perceived significantly less fair if an AI is involved, even in the treatment in which we explicitly highlight that the company policy ensures that the AI has been trained to be fair.
Inflation concerns and green product consumption: Evidence from a nationwide survey and a framed field experiment
Co-author: Lena Tonzer
Promoting green product consumption is one important element in building a sustainable society. Yet green products are usually more costly. In times of high inflation, not only budget constraints but also the fear that prices will continue to rise might dampen green product consumption and, hence, limit the effectiveness of exerted efforts to promote sustainable behaviors. To test this suggestion, we conducted a Germany-wide survey with almost 1,200 respondents, followed by a framed field experiment (N=500) to confirm causality. In the survey, respondents’ stated “green” purchasing behavior is, as to be expected, positively correlated with concerns about climate change. Yet it is also negatively correlated with concerns about future inflation and energy costs, and after controlling for observable characteristics such as income and educational level only the correlation with concerns about future prices remains significant. In the framed field experiment, participants were asked to assemble a basket of products in the online shop of a local supermarket. To incentivize that they only take products in which they are actually interested, we made clear that we would deliver these baskets to ten randomly drawn participants. Whereas sizeably relaxing the budget constraint (i.e. by 50 percent) has no impact on the share of organic products in participants’ baskets, making inflation more salient using the priming method significantly decreases the share of organic products, but only for individuals with below-median environmental attitude. This subgroup effect was already observed in the survey data and, hence, preregistered before running the field experiment.
Feeling obliged to follow: The impact of work-related identity on unethical pro-organizational behavior and the role of empowering leadership
Co-authors: Christoph Ostermair and Joschka Waibel
This study contributes to a better understanding of why people engage in unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) by investigating a mechanism that has been overlooked so far: the mere fact of being a subordinate at the workplace. To establish a causal relationship, we conducted a two-step controlled online experiment with 615 full-time employees. Before asking participants to follow a pro-organizational but rather immoral rule, we used the so-called priming method to activate the mental concept of acting in a private or work-related environment. Our findings reveal that individuals scoring high on perceived power distance indeed engage to a greater extent in UPB after being primed on their work-related identity. Our results, however, also stress the role of leadership styles. Especially empowering leadership is likely to decrease the feeling of being obliged to follow rules blindly. Participants who were confronted with empowering messages before our priming intervention showed the reversed effect and engage in UPB to the same extent as participants in our private priming control group.
Working Papers:
A Cashless Payment Option in Face-to-Face Fundraising
Co-authors: Adrian Chadi, Laszlo Goerke, and Konstantin Homolka
Cashless payments are ubiquitous, but if people are asked to contribute to charity face-to-face, they often prefer cash. A cashless payment option (CPO) may then even deter some individuals from donating. To investigate such behavioral phenomena, we carried out three separate experiments on the introduction of modern payment methods in face-to-face fundraising. We first conducted a field experiment in an art exhibition, where visitors could provide financial support after a guided tour. We randomly manipulated the donation opportunity, either offering a CPO or not. Additionally, we implemented two pay-whatyou-want (PWYW) treatment conditions (with and without CPO) by asking to compensate for the guided tour. Our results show that individuals hardly use the CPO in both the donation scenario and the PWYW scenario. Some types of visitors, such as frequent card users, were more likely to donate in cash because of the CPO. To explain this psychological phenomenon, we conducted a survey experiment on social pressure to give in fundraising, which shows that a CPO makes the excuse of not having cash available less credible. Moreover, our survey experiment shows that a CPO harms the awareness of need, which is a separate psychological driver of voluntary giving that could explain negative effects on donations. In line with this, a third experiment conducted at a Christmas market confirms that participants in face-to-face fundraising rarely use the CPO but react psychologically to its introduction by adjusting their willingness to donate.
Alone at Home: The Impact of Social Distancing on Norm-Consistent Behavior. IWH Discussion Papers No. 08/2021. [link]
Co-author: Joschka Waibel
Around the globe, the Covid-19 pandemic has turned daily live upside down since social distancing is probably the most effective means of containing the virus until herd immunity is reached. Social norms have been shown to be an important determinant of social distancing behaviors. By conducting two experiments and using the priming method to manipulate social isolation recollections, we study whether social distancing has in turn affected norms of prosociality and norm compliance. The normative expectations of what behaviors others would approve or disapprove in our experimental setting did not change. Looking at actual behavior, however, we find that persistent social distancing indeed causes a decline in prosociality ―even after the relaxation of social distancing rules and in times of optimism. At the same time, our results contain some good news since subjects seem still to care for norms and become more prosocial once again after we draw their attention to the empirical norm of how others have previously behaved in a similar situation.
For a summary of our article, see our LSE COVID-19 blog post, or oekonomenstimme.org (in German).
Press coverage (all in German): Berliner Zeitung, n-tv.de. Further articles in Magdeburger Volksstimme (05.08.2021), Schweriner Volkszeitung (28.06.2021), Leipziger Zeitung and Hamburger Abendblatt (25.06.2021), Deutschlandfunk Nova (24.06.2021). Short report in „Deffner & Zschäpitz: Wirtschaftspodcast von WELT“ (29.06.2021).