Are Business and Economics Students Taught to Be Noncooperative

Abstract Students of business management and economics are taught, in part, to be motivated by profits and self-interest. As a result, students who major in business and economics might be expected to exhibit greater levels of noncooperative behavior. In this article, we examine the relationship between the choice of academic major and cooperative behavior, by investigating whether students with certain tendencies toward cooperation self-select to specific disciplines or whether the tendencies develop as the students progress through their course of study.