arbiter
JournalsAccount

Spoiling the party: Experimental evidence on the willingness to transmit inconvenient ethical information

Jantsje M. Mol et al.

Experimental Economics2025https://doi.org/10.1017/eec.2025.6article
AJG 3ABDC A*
Weight
0.50

Abstract

Information about the consequences of our consumption choices can be unwelcome, and people sometimes avoid it. Thus, when people possess information that is inconvenient for another person, they may face a dilemma about whether to inform them. We introduce a simple and portable experimental game to analyze the transmission of inconvenient information. In this game, a Sender can, at a small cost, inform a Receiver about a negative externality associated with a tempting and profitable action for the Receiver. The results from our online experiment (N = 1,512) show that Senders transmit more information when negative externalities are larger and that Senders’ decisions are largely driven by their own preferences towards the charity and their own use of information. We do not find evidence that Senders take the Receiver’s preferences into account, as they largely ignore explicit requests for information, or ignorance, even if Receivers have the option to punish the Sender.

6 citations

Open via your library →

Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1017/eec.2025.6

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{jantsje2025,
  title        = {{Spoiling the party: Experimental evidence on the willingness to transmit inconvenient ethical information}},
  author       = {Jantsje M. Mol et al.},
  journal      = {Experimental Economics},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1017/eec.2025.6},
}

Paste directly into BibTeX, Zotero, or your reference manager.

Flag this paper

Spoiling the party: Experimental evidence on the willingness to transmit inconvenient ethical information

Flags are reviewed by the Arbiter methodology team within 5 business days.

Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.44 × 0.4 = 0.18
M · momentum0.65 × 0.15 = 0.10
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.