Selfies, therefore Selfish? An Experiment on the Impact and Value of a Selfie

Summary, in English

We investigate whether taking a selfie affects our willingness to cooperate and what factors affect our willingness to publish certain information on the web. Consistent with behavioral addiction theories, taking a selfie has a strong negative impact on cooperation among subjects who take selfies frequently, but not on other subjects. We also find that adding a selfie to information about the subject's degree of cooperation will increase the subject's unwillingness to publish her information. This selfie premium is significantly negatively correlated with the subject's degree of cooperation. Furthermore, we find lower heterogeneity in the premium demanded for publishing a subject's degree of cooperation when it is accompanied by a selfie, as subjects become less concerned about hiding or promoting their contribution.

• Author: Hj Holm; Margaret Samahita
• Department/s: Department of Economics
• Publishing year: 2016
• Language: English
• Publication/Series: Working Papers
• Issue: 2016:8
• Links: http://swopec.hhs.se/lunewp/abs/lunewp2016_008.htm
• Document type: Working paper
• Publisher: Department of Economics, Lund University
• Topic: Economics
• Keywords: selfie; cooperation; social media; social image; C90; C91; D80; D82
• Status: Published