Previous literature suggests an “economist effect”: business and economics students behave more like Homo economicus than do those from other disciplines. Does this represent selection of selfish maximizers into the disciplines, or a causal effect of study? We argue that common findings that behavior gets no “worse” over time represent overly simplistic tests. Our experiment investigates changes not just in behavior, but also in how participants feel about this behavior. Although we replicate the previous behavioral result, we find evidence that students learn to (1) attach less‐negative normative weight to maximizing behavior, and (2) employ greater sophistication in its implementation. (JEL A20, D91, C9)

中文翻译：

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拥抱黑暗的一面？测试最大化心态的社会化

先前的文献提出了“经济学家效应”：与其他学科的学生相比，商业和经济学学生的行为更像“经济学人”。这是否代表选择自私的最大化者进入学科，还是研究的因果关系？我们认为，普遍的发现是行为不会随着时间的推移而变得“更糟”，这表明测试过于简单。我们的实验不仅研究行为的变化，而且研究参与者对这种行为的感觉。尽管我们复制了以前的行为结果，但发现有证据表明，学生学会了（1）赋予负的规范权重以最大程度地提高行为，以及（2）在实现过程中运用更多的技巧。（ JEL A20，D91，C9）