We develop a dynamic model where people decide in the presence of moral constraints and test the predictions of the model through two experiments. Norm violations induce a temporal feeling of guilt that depreciates with time. Due to such fluctuations of guilt, people exhibit an endogenous temporal inconsistency in social preferences—a behavior we term conscience accounting. In our experiments p...

The paper reports the results of two experiments in which people who first made an immoral choice were then more likely to donate to charity than those who did not. In addition, those who knew that a donation opportunity would follow the potential moral transgression were more likely to behave immorally than those who were not told of the donation option. We interpret this increase in charitabl...

This paper presents people accounting—a hypothesis that describes how a simple numerical imbalance in representation along nominal social category lines can aVect people’s choice of candidates in highly competitive situations (e.g., awards, jobs, etc.). For example, two scholarship Wnalists from California and New York may be equally qualiWed, but the award-winning chance for the California can...