Horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism and preferences for altruism: A social discounting study

Abstract

Preferences for altruism are important in prosocial human behaviour. Studies have documented some differences in social discounting between cultures based on group-level comparisons. It is not clear however how cultural values such as individualism and collectivism are associated with social discounting at the individual-level. The research reported in this paper is based on an incentivized social discounting experiment conducted with 133 laboratory subjects in South Africa, using the standard social discounting task (SDT) and the 14-item reduced-form IND-COL scale. The analysis explores the associations between preferences for altruism and the Individualism and Collectivism (IC) dichotomy and, more specifically, with the Horizontal and Vertical Individualism and Collectivism (HVIC) schema. The study finds only horizontal collectivism to be associated with greater preferences for altruism. Global shifts toward greater individualism therefore need not threaten the realisation of the benefits of altruism.