Social, Behavioral and Experimental Economics Seminar: Andras Molnar
"It’s not about the money. It’s about sending a message!" Avengers want offenders to understand the reason for revenge
Abstract
While revenge is typically thought to serve utilitarian goals (deter future offenses) or as an end in itself (restore fairness, equate suffering), we test whether “belief-based” motives also shape revenge behavior. Across four studies—one observational, two hypothetical choice, and one real choice—we find evidence that avengers want the offender to understand why (and sometimes by whom) they are being punished, even when doing so cannot change the offender’s future behavior. Avengers prefer punishments that allow them to communicate the reason to offenders, and they are willing to compromise on distributive justice to do so. Furthermore, avengers are less motivated to cause suffering if offenders remain ignorant of the reason. We explore reasons beyond deterrence that explain why avengers may care about what offenders believe, and also discuss the implications of these motives for organizations.
Speaker bio
Andras Molnar is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, with education and research training at the intersection of psychology, economics and business.
Before joining the University of Michigan, he completed his PhD in behavioral decision research at the Department of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, and then worked as a principal researcher at the Center for Decision Research at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Prior his graduate studies, he was a Fulbright Visiting Research Scholar at Carnegie Mellon University, studied cognitive science at Central European University, Hungary, and earned a BA and an MA in economics.
Molnar’s research focuses on motivated preferences for information and the role of beliefs in social interactions, especially those that involve moral behavior. He studies situations in which people have “non-instrumental” reasons to care about what they and others believe, as well as the implications of these motives to theories of decision-making, organizations and public policy. At the heart of this work lies the idea that people are often motivated to hold (or avoid) specific beliefs (or to make sure that others hold specific beliefs), for their own sake, even if these beliefs cannot help them to make better decisions (or, at times, lead to worse decisions). In his research, he applies this concept, “belief-based utility,” to a wide range of topics that are relevant to both theory and practice: revenge, curiosity and information avoidance, belief polarization, forgiveness, and information disclosure.
In addition to his research projects, he is dedicated to improving experimental research methods and open science practices. He has developed a free and open-source tool (https://smartriqs.com), that allows researchers to implement real-time interaction between participants in online surveys.