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Does Ethics Training Neutralize the Incentives of the Prisoner's Dilemma? Evidence from a Classroom Experiment

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An Erratum to this article was published on 01 May 2004

Abstract

Teaching economics has been shown to encourage students to defect in a prisoner's dilemma game. However, can ethics training reverse that effect and promote cooperation? We conducted an experiment to answer this question. We found that students who had the ethics module had higher rates of cooperation than students without the ethics module, even after controlling for communication and other factors expected to affect cooperation. We conclude that the teaching of ethics can mitigate the possible adverse incentives of the prisoner's dilemma, and, by implication, the adverse effects of economics and business training.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Agribusiness Research Institute, University of Missouri, 146 Mumford Hall, Columbia, MO, 65211, U.S.A.

    Harvey S. James Jr.

  2. Department of Economics, University of Hartford, 200 Bloomfield Ave., West Hartford, CT, 06117, U.S.A.

    Jeffrey P. Cohen

Authors
  1. Harvey S. James Jr.
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  2. Jeffrey P. Cohen
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Additional information

An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/B:BUSI.0000032618.53528.7b.

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James, H.S., Cohen, J.P. Does Ethics Training Neutralize the Incentives of the Prisoner's Dilemma? Evidence from a Classroom Experiment. Journal of Business Ethics 50, 53–61 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:BUSI.0000020869.42655.f4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:BUSI.0000020869.42655.f4

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