Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/316346 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 465
Publisher: 
University of Zurich, Department of Economics, Zurich
Abstract: 
A growing number of studies suggest that individuals are cynical about others' behavior. But these findings often rely on self-reported rather than actual behavior as benchmark. A well-documented limitation of self-reports is their tendency to overstate good behavior. I introduce a simple, portable test to assess the extent to which inattention to others' potential misreporting drives apparently cynical beliefs about stated behavior. Drawing people's attention to the possibility of misreporting in self-reports increases beliefs about others' stated desirable climate and health behaviors by an average of 0.33 standard deviations, substantially reducing apparent cynicism.
Subjects: 
Misperception
social desirability
attention
JEL: 
C90
D83
D91
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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