Repugnant Transactions: The Role of Agency and Extreme Consequences

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: Some transactions are restricted or prohibited, although people may want to engage in them (e.g., the sale of human organs, surrogacy, and prostitution). It is not well understood what causes the judgement of repugnance. We study two potential reasons: lack of agency of the parties and extreme consequences of the transaction. Limited agency arises, e.g., when one party cannot decide freely because she is not able to reject the transaction offered, a third person who profits from the transaction takes the decision on her behalf, or she is forced to proceed with the transaction due to social pressure. In a laboratory experiment, we ask spectators whether they want to prohibit a transaction or not. We find that transactions with extreme outcomes (listening to a painful tone) are more frequently prohibited than those with mild outcomes (waiting in the laboratory). We also show that lack of agency and extreme outcomes reinforce each other, since the combination of both properties leads to prohibition rates of up to 80 percent.

Type of resource	text
Date created	August 12, 2021

Author	Erkut, Hande
Author	Kubler, Dorothea
Organizer of meeting	Exley, Christine
Organizer of meeting	Marquina, Alejandro Martínez
Organizer of meeting	Niederle, Muriel
Organizer of meeting	Roth, Alvin
Organizer of meeting	Vesterlund, Lise

DOI	https://doi.org/10.25740/hz719zg8581
Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/hz719zg8581

Use and reproduction: User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY).

Preferred citation: Erkut, H. and Kubler, D. (2022). Repugnant Transactions: The Role of Agency and Extreme Consequences. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/hz719zg8581

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