Abstract
Does higher socioeconomic status predict decreased prosocial behavior? Methodological issues such as the reliance of survey studies on self-reported measures of prosociality, the insufficient control of relative incentives in experiments, and the use of non-random samples, have prevented researchers from ruling out that there is a negative association between socioeconomic status (SES) and prosociality. Here, we present results from a field experiment on the willingness of unaware individuals of different SES to undertake an effortful prosocial task—returning a misdelivered letter. Specifically, using the rental or sale value of homes as indicators of SES, we randomly selected households of high and low SES and misdelivered envelopes to them. Despite controlling for numerous covariates and performing a series of ancillary tests, we fail to find any evidence that higher SES predicts decreased prosocial behavior. Instead, we find that misdelivered letters are substantially more likely to be returned from high rather than low SES households.
Highlights
Does higher socioeconomic status predict decreased prosocial behavior? Methodological issues such as the reliance of survey studies on self-reported measures of prosociality, the insufficient control of relative incentives in experiments, and the use of non-random samples, have prevented researchers from ruling out that there is a negative association between socioeconomic status (SES) and prosociality
In the Cash treatment, 76.7% of the envelopes misdelivered in high SES households were returned, compared to 27.8% of the envelopes misdelivered in low SES households (N = 180, p < 0.01, two-tailed, Fisher-exact)
A similar pattern, is observed in the bank-transfer card (BTC) treatment where 85.6% of the envelopes misdelivered in high SES households are returned, and 47.8% of the envelopes in low SES households (N = 180, p < 0.01, two-tailed, Fisherexact)
Summary
Methodological issues such as the reliance of survey studies on self-reported measures of prosociality, the insufficient control of relative incentives in experiments, and the use of non-random samples, have prevented researchers from ruling out that there is a negative association between socioeconomic status (SES) and prosociality. Returning an envelope is a costly prosocial act that is against one’s (narrow) self-interest as doing so benefits another individual (the intended recipient), but requires time and effort[29,30] These time and effort costs are likely to be small, implying that any differences across high and low SES groups are likely minimal. Survey respondents estimated they would need three minutes to repost a misdelivered letter (see Supplementary Note 5)
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