CeDEx Brown Bag Seminar - Jingwei Li

Title: Do people keep their elicited promises and why?

Abstract: Sometimes people keep their promises that contradict their self-interest even in the absence of binding contracts or reputational concerns. Two dominant explanations have emerged from the literature for this behavior: (1) the avoidance of guilt due to not satisfying other people's expectations; (2) an intrinsic preference for keeping a promise. In this study, we try to provide causal evidence in favor of each rationale in the context of elicited promise. Our results constitute evidence for the latter explanation but fail to support the former one: even when people are “forced” to give a promise, they still recognize the necessity of keeping it, stemming from an preference for promise-keeping per se.