Judgment and Decision Making.Vol.6.No.7.October 2011.pp.602-615 Behind the veil of ignorance:Self-serving bias in climate change negotiations Peter H.Kriss* George Loewenstein" Xianghong Wangh Roberto A.Weber Abstract a reduction i sing the prob and the i entity of the partie ment on how to implement emissions duction is,the al difference Ke ords:self-serving bias ange negotiation,fair f ion 1 Introduction way of agreement. ely e might consider the social dile Although debate cor about tech ntif structure of the problem (e..Tavoni etal..2011 or other strategic concerns (e.g..Finus,2001,chapter9)to be the arg in combat ng clm chan veloping and implementing solutions to mitigate its im d:This pact.Slowing climate change will almost certainly re nts are ouse gas em ons.but agree thus far proven an intractable problem Despite long tanding agreement that combating anthropogenic cli he fair distri mate change is e that n the role that the self-serving bias.as o sed to differ 00 soccurred in Copenhagen in 2009 show that nations are ing fundamental beliefs about faimess.plays in impeding such agreemen unable to agree on what constitutes a fair sharing of the The countres that take part in climate change negotia emissions urden (Lange et al 2010).1nhi ons or p aper v y ng agreemen dency to believe that what is beneficial to oneself is also of past and pr ojected emis fair.The self-serving bias,and not intrinsic ss-cultura ch on the ing t wha the ohsdstib may Iepr ng We than ries between parties on dimensions relevant to a nego an,John B ears,Had ation contribute to the bias,because people place greater weight on dir t that efully ack the Hewlett t the lniv tein 1992:Wade-Ben zoni et al 1996:Di Tella et al. dD 2007. The self-serving bias has been documented and showr to play a central role in negotiation impa se b oth in lab oratory studies (Loewenstein et al1993:Babcock et 602 Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 6, No. 7, October 2011, pp. 602–615 Behind the veil of ignorance: Self-serving bias in climate change negotiations Peter H. Kriss∗ George Loewenstein∗ Xianghong Wang† Roberto A. Weber‡ Abstract Slowing climate change will almost certainly require a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but agreement on who should reduce emissions by how much is difficult, in part because of the self-serving bias—the tendency to believe that what is beneficial to oneself is also fair. Conducting surveys among college students in the United States and China, we show that each of these groups displays a nationalistic self-serving bias in judgments of a fair distribution of economic burdens resulting from mitigation. Yet, we also show, by disguising the problem and the identity of the parties, that it is possible to elicit perceptions of fairness that are not influenced by national interests. Our research reveals that the self-serving bias plays a major role in the difficulty of obtaining agreement on how to implement emissions reductions. That is, the disagreement over what constitutes fair climate policy does not appear to be due to cross-national differences in what constitutes a fair distribution of burdens. Interventions to mitigate the self-serving bias may facilitate agreement. Keywords: self-serving bias, climate change, negotiation, fairness, veil of ignorance. 1 Introduction Although debate continues about technical and scientific issues surrounding climate change, the human dimen￾sions of the problem pose significant impediments to de￾veloping and implementing solutions to mitigate its im￾pact. Slowing climate change will almost certainly re￾quire a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but agree￾ing upon who should reduce emissions by how much has thus far proven an intractable problem. Despite long￾standing agreement that combating anthropogenic cli￾mate change is a serious issue that necessitates interna￾tional cooperation (United Nations, 1992), failures such as occurred in Copenhagen in 2009 show that nations are unable to agree on what constitutes a fair sharing of the emissions reduction burden (Lange et al., 2010). In this paper we show that the difficulty of reaching agreement is, in part, due to the self-serving bias—the pervasive ten￾dency to believe that what is beneficial to oneself is also fair. The self-serving bias, and not intrinsic cross-cultural differences in what is judged a fair distribution of sacri- fices, may represent the primary obstacle standing in the We thank Jonathan Baron, Max Bazerman, John Beshears, Hadi Dowlatabadi, Keith Florig, Sonja Klinsky and two anonymous referees for thoughtful comments and suggestions at various stages of this work. We gratefully acknowledge support from the Hewlett and Rockefeller Foundations as well as the research priority program at the University of Zurich “Foundations of Human Social Behavior.” ∗Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon Uni￾versity, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 15213. Email: pkriss@cmu.edu. †Renmin University of China ‡University of Zurich way of agreement. Alternatively, one might consider the social dilemma structure of the problem (e.g., Tavoni et al., 2011) or other strategic concerns (e.g., Finus, 2001, chapter 9) to be the largest obstacles in combating climate change. This pa￾per takes these structural issues as givens and implicitly assumes that they are the reason formal agreements are needed in the first place. In particular, a pre-condition for getting parties to agree to self-sacrifice in pursuit of a collective solution is to reach an agreement regarding the fair distribution of burdens. This paper focuses on the role that the self-serving bias, as opposed to differ￾ing fundamental beliefs about fairness, plays in impeding such agreement. The countries that take part in climate change negotia￾tions differ on myriad dimensions of potential relevance to a fair assignment of burdens, including their levels of past and projected emissions, the costs of mitigation, and the benefits obtained by successfully addressing the problem. Research on the self-serving bias (Messick & Sentis, 1983; Bazerman et al., 1999; Diekmann et al., 1997; Rabin, 1995; Konow, 2000) shows that asymme￾tries between parties on dimensions relevant to a negoti￾ation contribute to the bias, because people place greater weight on dimensions that support a settlement that is more beneficial to themselves (Thompson & Loewen￾stein, 1992; Wade-Benzoni et al., 1996; Di Tella et al., 2007). The self-serving bias has been documented and shown to play a central role in negotiation impasse both in lab￾oratory studies (Loewenstein et al., 1993; Babcock et 602