Judgment and Decision Making,Vol.6.No.7,October 2011 Behind the veil of ignorance 604 We randomly assigned students from the United States and China e of three scenari t varied the cruited either at the end cy were ware own na One he the cations at ther respe ceriodesigned to show the impact of the self-serving bias.made the domain (climate change)explicit as well subjects to a computer terminal.where they completed the online survey. Each subject randomly assigned to one of also altered the nature of the environmental problem so share the of whic with th subjects would be unlikely to realize that it was about cli- problem.One context involved the U.S.A.and China mate change.A third scenario disguised the problem even the second involved two generic countries("Country A" her castingt and"Country B"),and the third involved two neighbor ing farme "and B )Ine key sec ing burdens between the parties were identicalinal three. economic state of the two parties was summarized by per capita GDP(USA/China and CountryA/B contexts) ng sc were pos: or income i o）and asso projecte strate simple ental p e that s two partes the effect of self-serving bias from the possible effects identical for each of the three contexts of cultural differences in perceptions of fairess.Doing After seeing this information.subiects were presented nelps us cle ry esta that sel serving bias plays with graphs that displayed current and projected per s to lea D The tions may be of tremendous value.Finally.our study could be atered with the slider.As the slider dentifies subpopulations that may be more was moved,the lines in the graphs indicating both coun ries (or farmers) “with sacrifice”per capita GDP(oi ncome the sh er ur nost fair To tert and c anchoring effects the 2 Method starting position of the slider was randomized across sub jects to be all the way to the left or all the way to the right The as a ran er pos te an popul were th nese students who completed the survey in in which they made a choice)or that the slider position American students who completed the survey in English. was randomized. reasons. First,students rep After submitting their decision,subjects were told omc across differen each A emograp what percentage of the burden they had a tative of the population of ither China or the U.S the party and similarity of their social and economic position enhances ome foreach of the tw the validity of comparing and averaging across their re. 2030 and 2040)The same g raph and slider were pre- co s are that were posed by the elicitation hod,and they have hey had spec he n th: the n n the table as the lines on the graph changed.After submitting the found to slider position this second time.subjects answered sev- eral attitudinal and demographic questions. Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 6, No. 7, October 2011 Behind the veil of ignorance 604 We randomly assigned students from the United States and China to one of three scenarios that varied the de￾gree to which they were aware of their own national interests—i.e., were behind the veil of ignorance. One scenario, designed to show the impact of the self-serving bias, made the domain (climate change) explicit as well as the two countries involved (China and the United States). A second scenario disguised the countries (using the generic labels “Country A” and “Country B”), and also altered the nature of the environmental problem so subjects would be unlikely to realize that it was about cli￾mate change. A third scenario disguised the problem even further, casting it as a negotiation between two neighbor￾ing farmers. Although the scenarios differed on multiple dimensions, the relative economic consequences of shift￾ing burdens between the parties were identical in all three. Our goal in this research is not to suggest implement￾ing a veil of ignorance in real climate negotiations as a policy recommendation (though if doing so were possi￾ble, we would support it). Our contribution is to demon￾strate a simple experimental procedure that can isolate the effect of self-serving bias from the possible effects of cultural differences in perceptions of fairness. Doing so helps us clearly establish that self-serving bias plays a role in the inability of parties to reach agreement. Our findings also suggest that interventions that eliminate the self-serving bias in international climate policy negotia￾tions may be of tremendous value.1 Finally, our study identifies subpopulations that may be more susceptible to self-serving bias, which may facilitate targeted interven￾tions to influence opinion and allow agreement. 2 Method The survey was conducted as a randomized experiment with a 2 (Population) X 3 (Context) X 2 (Slider position) between subjects design. The two populations were Chi￾nese students who completed the survey in Mandarin and American students who completed the survey in English. We used students for two reasons. First, students rep￾resent a relatively similar demographic across different countries. Although college students are not represen￾tative of the population of either China or the U.S., the similarity of their social and economic position enhances the validity of comparing and averaging across their re￾sponses. Second, college students are sufficiently intelli￾gent and well educated to think about the kinds of issues that were posed by the elicitation method, and they have 1We recognize that developing such interventions is extremely chal￾lenging. A variety of methods, such as encouraging the parties to con￾sider the problem from one another’s perspective, have been found to backfire (Caruso et al., 2006; Epley et al., 2006). credibility as a nation’s likely future policy makers. Sub￾jects were recruited either at the end of classes or from public locations at their respective universities. We de￾scribe the recruitment procedures and monetary incentive below. Following recruitment, an experimenter guided subjects to a computer terminal, where they completed the online survey. Each subject was randomly assigned to one of three contexts, all of which involved two parties that needed to share the economic burden associated with solving a joint problem. One context involved the U.S.A. and China, the second involved two generic countries (“Country A” and “Country B”), and the third involved two neighbor￾ing farmers (“Farmer A” and “Farmer B”). The key sec￾tions of the description for each of the three contexts are presented in Table 1. In addition to this context, the economic state of the two parties was summarized by per capita GDP (USA/China and CountryA/B contexts) or income (FarmerA/B context) and associated projected growth rates for each of the two parties. This information was presented numerically as well as graphically and was identical for each of the three contexts. After seeing this information, subjects were presented with graphs that displayed current and projected per capita GDP (or income), under different possible divi￾sions of the economic burden associated with solving the problem (Figure 1). The different possible divisions could be altered dynamically with the slider. As the slider was moved, the lines in the graphs indicating both coun￾tries’ (or farmers’) “with sacrifice” per capita GDP (or income) shifted, and subjects could move the slider un￾til they found the division of sacrifice that they deemed most fair. To test and control for anchoring effects, the starting position of the slider was randomized across sub￾jects to be all the way to the left or all the way to the right. Subjects were not aware that the study involved Chinese and American populations, that there were three different contexts (they were only aware of the particular context in which they made a choice) or that the slider position was randomized. After submitting their decision, subjects were told what percentage of the burden they had allocated to each party and were presented with a table indicating the nu￾merical implications of this decision (per capita GDP or income for each of the two parties in the year 2010, 2020, 2030 and 2040). The same graph and slider were pre￾sented on this page (with the slider starting at the position they had specified on the previous page), and subjects had the opportunity to revise their decision. As they moved the slider on this page, the numbers in the table as well as the lines on the graph changed. After submitting the slider position this second time, subjects answered sev￾eral attitudinal and demographic questions