Virtue Signaling
“We trust our health to the physician; our fortune and sometimes our life and reputation to the lawyer and attorney. Such confidence could not safely be reposed in people of a very mean or low condition.”
The Wealth of Nations, Book 1 Ch. 10.
In the absence of precise information about an individual's moral character, we are forced to rely on noisy signals about their virtuousness. As humans are aware of this, sometimes will try to manipulate such signals in their favor. This behavior is often referred to as virtue signaling.
Virtue signaling may range from holding the door open or insisting to pay the bill on a first date, to outright lying about your personal viewpoints on key discussion topics like climate change, politics, and so on. From a Kantian perspective, all virtue signals are equally contemptible. Utilitarians would argue that intentions and final outcomes also matter. I tend to think both are right to an extend.
My current work
I am currently working on two experiments on virtue signaling. The first experiment focuses on how virtue signaling may influence the behavior of buyers and sellers in credence goods markets. The second experiment focuses on virtue signaling in employer-employee relationships. As I am still collecting data for the second experiment, I can't yet share more details for the projects. As soon as data collection is over, I will be uploading more information about the design and results of the two experiments.
Charities
In both experiments, participants are given the option to give to donate to charity. The following table summarizes the charities to which participants donated including the total amount donated to each charity. The receipts for the donations can be found here
Related Literature
If you are interested in economic experiments on virtue signaling, I would recommend the following articles:
Bénabou, R., & Tirole, J. (2006). Incentives and prosocial behavior. American economic review, 96(5), 1652-1678.
Fehrler, S., & Przepiorka, W. (2013). Charitable giving as a signal of trustworthiness: Disentangling the signaling benefits of altruistic acts. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34(2), 139-145.
Fehrler, S., & Przepiorka, W. (2016). Choosing a partner for social exchange: Charitable giving as a signal of trustworthiness. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 129, 157-171.
Gambetta, D., & Przepiorka, W. (2014). Natural and strategic generosity as signals of trustworthiness. PloS one, 9(5),
Gambetta, D., & Székely, Á. (2014). Signs and (counter) signals of trustworthiness. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 106, 281-297.
Przepiorka, W., & Berger, J. (2017). Signaling theory evolving: Signals and signs of trustworthiness in social exchange. In Social dilemmas, institutions, and the evolution of cooperation (pp. 373-392). De Gruyter Oldenbourg.