Life is too short to be small: an experiment on mortality salience and prosocial behavior

Abstract

We study the impact of mortality salience on altruistic giving using a laboratory experiment. We primed subjects in treatment group with grid tasks and made mortality salient. We found that it made them think of things “bigger” than themselves, and therefore behaved more like maximizers of utilitarian (Coasian) welfare function. We also found that temporal discounting factor acted as the mediating variable, particularly when the price of giving was high. Furthermore, we established a structural model of the dictator game and estimated the preference parameters for each group. The significant parametric differences confirmed preference alteration as the second channel. Finally, our findings were strengthened by showing that the priming did not change subjects’ mood while it indeed alter their awareness of mortality. This paper provides implications for several research topics such as the impact of catastrophe, function of religion, and implementations of anti-corruption.