Self-control in peer groups
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Publication Details
Output type: Journal article
Author list: Battaglini M, Benabou R, Tirole J
Publisher: Elsevier
Publication year: 2005
Journal: Journal of Economic Theory (0022-0531)
Volume number: 123
Issue number: 4
Start page: 105
End page: 134
Number of pages: 30
ISSN: 0022-0531
eISSN: 1095-7235
Languages: English-Great Britain (EN-GB)
Unpaywall Data
Open access status: closed
Abstract
Social influences on self-control underlie both self-help groups and many peer interactions among youths. To understand these phenomena, we analyze how observing each other's behavior affects individuals' ability to deal with their own impulses. These endogenous informational spillovers lead to either a unique "good news" equilibrium that ameliorates behavior, a unique "bad news equilibrium" that worsens it, or to the coexistence of both. A welfare analysis shows that people will find social interactions valuable only when they have enough confidence in their own and others' ability to resist temptation. The ideal partner, however, is someone with a slightly worse self-control problem than one's own: this makes his successes more encouraging, and his failures less discouraging. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords
addiction, clubs, memory, peer effects, psychology, self-control, social interactions, time-inconsistency, willpower
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