DISSERTATION TOPIC

Dissertation Topic

The Influence of Moral Identity on People's Decision Making



Brief Description

In contrast to standard economic theory, individuals are not merely influenced by pecuniary incentives.
Rather a multitude of factors, e.g. the situational context, emotions, and the introspection as a moral individual, affect human behavior to a great extent.
In order to allow for a bridging between psychological and economic theory, behavioral economics reveals how these influences affects our everyday life.
In accordance, it shows that individuals' self-image is a main factor in human decision making and can dominate pecuniary incentives.
It was shown that individuals' moral identity affects behavior to a great extend.
However, it remains unclear whether these results are robust regarding both an assumed subjective optimal and fixed point for individuals' moral identity and the time-consistency of effects like moral balancing.
In using experimental-economic methods, a new understanding of how external and internal factors have an effect on individuals' self-assessment and self-perception as a moral person will be enabled.
This will allow for a better understanding of the human decision making process and lead to further implications.



Period of Dissertation

2014 - 2017