Public lecture - Lubomír Cingl: Do prison inmates expect stigmatization? Evidence from lab-in-the-field experiments.

Doc. Cingl is an Associate Professor at the Department of Managerial Economics of the Prague University of Economics and Business

and his research examines topics such as the effects of time pressure and stress on human behavior, theories of secularization and religious (and non-standard) beliefs; dishonesty, tax compliance, antisocial & delinquent behavior; ambiguity and risk-preferences; and individual willingness to compete. You can find more information on his website: https://lubomircingl.wordpress.com/

Public lecture:

Do prison inmates expect stigmatization? Evidence from lab-in-the-field experiments.

Prisoners are often stigmatized after their release, contributing to the high rates of recidivism. However, little is known if and how much their beliefs are affected before release: if an expectation of stigma already arises during incarceration. In a lab-in-the-field experiment, we study if inmates expect to be stigmatized by people outside of prison in a standard trust game (and triple dictator game), and if it is reflected in their trustworthiness. Next, we test if a light-touch psychological intervention — self-affirmation — can mitigate the assumed impact of stigma, looking at the role of risk preferences and competitive confidence. In both games, senders are non-inmates and receivers are 297 inmates. We manipulate whether the prison identity is revealed to senders or not, and inmates interact with both types in a within-subject design. Contrary to our expectations, inmates do not feel stigmatized as they expect to receive a higher transfer in the trust game when their prison identity is revealed. We run a follow-up experiment with 486 inmates. We replicate their over-optimism and identify the most likely channel to be the expected neediness while being in prison also plays a role.