CeDEx Brown Bag Seminar - Xue Wang

Title: Fairness Perceptions, Group Identity, and Self-Promotion

Abstract: Self-promotion is critical in the labour market when information is incomplete, yet extrinsic incentives often induce strategic lying. The intrinsic cost of lying is context-dependent and may be affected by perceived unfairness when incentive schemes for self-promotion favour one group over another. We investigate how individual decisions to self-promote are affected by perceived unfair treatment, and whether group identity moderates this effect. Our theory predicts that perceived unfairness lowers the intrinsic cost of lying, thereby increasing self-promotion. We design a lab experiment in which subjects are asked to do a cognitive test without feedback, and then self-report their performance under monetary incentives to report higher. Across treatments, we vary (i) whether subjects are informed that others face more advantageous payment rules, and (ii) whether this differential treatment is accompanied by salient group identities. We also elicit individual lying aversion, inequality aversion and self-confidence to explore heterogeneity in responses.