Altruism Hypothesis Research Articles

Exhibited trust and excessive knowledge specificity: A competitive altruism hypothesis

To expound upon a hidden and intrinsic mechanism in the formation of trust, this study links competitive altruism to a component of the trust phenomenon by introducing the concept of exhibited trust. It is speculated that initiating trust is a more value-oriented action, with the purpose of improving the reputation of a firm as an ideal partner through the exhibition of trust. The concern regarding the potential for opportunism is less in this situation. The motivation to form trust is linked to the moral aspect of cooperative actions. Exhibited trust, as a conspicuous display of altruism, can function to build and maintain reputation in a business relationship. A competitive altruism hypothesis is constructed in two ways to investigate the role of excessive knowledge specificity in exhibiting the trusting ability of a firm and is subsequently tested using two survey datasets.

A Longitudinal Analysis of Romantic Relationship Formation

In line with the sexual selection for altruism hypothesis, research has shown that men and women typically prefer hypothetical partners who are described as prosocial to otherwise similar individuals. In this study, we consider this hypothesis in the real world by examining whether prosocial behavior conveys actual benefits in terms of real-life mating success. Using a nationally representative annual panel data set, we examine the impact of single individuals’ prosocial behavior on their probabilities of finding a steady partner in the course of the following year. Our results show that single individuals who frequently engaged in prosocial behavior had substantially higher chances of being in a stable relationship the following year. The effect persisted even after accounting for individual differences in the Big Five personality traits and the degree of social involvement.

Comments of a songbird researcher on the “competitive altruism hypothesis” in the Miyazawa-Izawa study: Comments on Miyazawa and Izawaʼs article

Comments of a songbird researcher on the “competitive altruism hypothesis” in the Miyazawa-Izawa study: Comments on Miyazawa and Izawaʼs article

International migration, migrant stock, and remittances: Reexamining the motivations to remit

Abstract This paper empirically examines the factors causing the recently increased flow of workers’ remittances to developing countries. The main question we seek to answer is whether these increased remittances are the result of increased amounts sent by existing migrants (intensive margin) or the result of more migration (extensive margin). Thus, this paper reexamines the hypotheses concerning motivations to remit. Using a large data set on migrant stock and remittances we show that home income contractions do not appear to induce existing migrants to send more remittances. Thus our results do not support the pure altruism hypothesis concerning workers’ remittances, according to which migrants send more remittances when their home country's relative income declines. However, our results indicate that the flow of remittances increases in response to income shocks at home which cause people to migrate to earn a higher income abroad.

Una nota su incentivi manageriali e altruismo in oligopolio

This note explores the impact of reciprocal altruism on the equilibrium outcome of a two-stage oligopoly game with managerial frms. The structure of the classical two-stage oligopoly game with managerial incentives with strategic substitutes (quantity competition) generates a typical distortion at equilibrium where quantities turn out to be larger than the Cournot-Nash equilibrium ones. This paper shows that when firm owners’ objective functions are defined according to a reciprocal altruism hypothesis, the Cournot outcome of the static game can be achieved despite the two stage structure of the model. This result holds true when the analysis is extended to an N symmetric firms context.

Charitable giving among females and males: an empirical test of the competitive altruism hypothesis

We conduct a real-effort task experiment where subjects' performance translates into a donation to a charity. In a within-subjects design we vary the visibil- ity of the donation (no/private/public feedback). Confirming previous studies, we find that subjects' performance increases, that is, they donate more to charity, when their relative performance is made public. In line with the competitive altruism hypothe- sis, a biology-based explanation for status-seeking behavior, especially male subjects increase performance in the public setting.

Self‐Protective Altruism

AbstractProsocial behavior accentuates the tension between two conflicting human motivations, self‐interest and belongingness. Responding to the needs of others may compromise self‐interest. Acting callously, however, may lead to social disproval. These antagonistic responses are existentially meaningful as belongingness and self‐esteem have been found to regulate death anxiety. In this paper I critically examine three possible hypotheses concerning the tension between egotism and prosociality from a terror management perspective. The first hypothesis, the carpe diem hypothesis, suggests that when death is salient egotistic self‐interest overrides other‐oriented responses. The second hypothesis, the norm salience hypothesis, suggests that when death is salient people will respond according to the momentarily accessible social norm. The third hypothesis, the self‐protective altruism hypothesis, argues that when the prosocial cause reminds people of their fragile, mortal nature people will turn away from helping when death is salient, but when the prosocial cause is benign death salience will increase prosocial responding.

Electroencephalographic α-band and β-band correlates of perspective-taking and personal distress

Perspective-taking and personal distress are argued to play contrasting roles in empathic processing, with perspective-taking promoting empathic concern and personal distress promoting egoistic motivations. Previous research has shown that emotionally negative valence imagery induced α and β power changes relative to neutral imagery and that α activity relates inversely to empathy. We therefore investigated the hypothesis that enhanced β is associated with personal distress and is accompanied by a correlation between α and perspective-taking. Participants viewed negative and neutral valence images from the International Affective Picture System and made judgments about their levels of concern for humans in each image. As predicted, greater β enhancement was associated with higher personal distress, whereas greater α-band suppression was associated with lower perspective-taking abilities. We suggest that these data support Batson's Empathy-Altruism hypothesis in which failure to adopt another person's perspective is related to greater personal distress.

Blood donation is an act of benevolence rather than altruism.

Blood donation is described as an archetypal altruistic behavior, and recruitment/retention campaigns emphasize altruism. Here, a benevolence hypothesis for blood donation (both the donor and recipient benefit) rather than the altruism hypothesis (only the recipient gains) is proposed. Three United Kingdom-based studies contrasted benevolence and altruism: (a) a 6-month prospective study of blood donor behavior (Study 1: N = 957), (b) a cross-sectional study of blood donors' intentions (Study 2: N = 333), and (c) an experimental study examining the effect of benevolent and altruistic messages on willingness to help across high- and low-cost helping behaviors for committed and noncommitted blood donors (Study 3: N = 200). Donor behavior and intentions-willingness. Beliefs in personal and societal benefit (Time 1) and actual donations (Time 2) were assessed in Study 1; beliefs in benevolence, altruism, hedonism, and kinship along with donation intentions were assessed in Study 2; and empathy, donor commitment, and willingness to donate blood, money, fund-raise, and staff a telephone helpline were assessed in Study 3. Beliefs in personal rather than societal benefit predicted actual future donation. A path model showed that only beliefs in benevolence were associated with intentions to donate. Committed blood donors were more willing to donate blood when exposed to a benevolent message rather than an altruistic one. This effect was not observed for other forms of helping. The benevolence hypothesis is supported, suggesting that blood donor motivation is partly selfish. Blood donation campaigns should focus on benevolent rather than purely altruistic messages.

Nice Guys Finish First: The Competitive Altruism Hypothesis

Three experimental studies examined the relationship between altruistic behavior and the emergence of status hierarchies within groups. In each study, group members were confronted with a social dilemma in which they could either benefit themselves or their group. Study 1 revealed that in a reputation environment when contributions were public, people were more altruistic. In both Studies 1 and 2, the most altruistic members gained the highest status in their group and were most frequently preferred as cooperative interaction partners. Study 3 showed that as the costs of altruism increase, the status rewards also increase. These results support the premise at the heart of competitive altruism: Individuals may behave altruistically for reputation reasons because selective benefits (associated with status) accrue to the generous.

Why long-lived species are more likely to be social: the role of local dominance

Recent studies have shown that individuals of species that live in groups tend to have high annual survival, but this link has lacked a theoretical explanation. We evaluate two hypotheses that explain how longevity could have led to the evolution of group living. The first is the territory inheritance hypothesis, and it proposes that longevity increases the probability of nonbreeding subordinates surviving long enough to have the opportunity of inheriting their natal territory. Second, we propose a novel hypothesis, the reciprocal altruism hypothesis, which is that longevity increases local dominance by favoring nonaggression pacts among neighboring residents because longevity increases the likelihood of reciprocal altruism. Birds thus accept subordinate residency because the exclusion of nonlocal birds will mean that, if they survive long enough, they will be likely to actually achieve territory inheritance. The reciprocal altruism hypothesis is supported by a wider array of evidence; becomes progressively more powerful as longevity increases, thus producing a positive feedback; explains the evolution of local dominance (whereas the territory inheritance hypothesis assumes its existence); and provides an explanation for why cooperative breeding should be found more often in aseasonal environments. Key words: cooperative breeding, delayed breeding, localized dominance, reciprocal altruism, short-distance dispersal, social queuing. [Behav Ecol]

Altruistic personality in the context of the empathy–altruism hypothesis

In this study the influence of the altruistic personality in general and social responsibility in particular on prosocial behaviour were investigated in the context of the empathy–altruism hypothesis. In an experiment 56 female participants had an opportunity to help a person in distress. In this setting, ease of escape without helping was manipulated. In addition, on the basis of their self‐reports of situation‐specific emotions, participants were divided into an empathic‐concern and a personal‐distress group. The results of the 2 (ease of escape) × 2 (predominant emotional response) design were in agreement with the empathy–altruism hypothesis. Further results indicated that in the easy‐escape condition an altruistic motivation prevailed, whereas in the difficult‐escape condition an egoistic motivation was more dominant. Besides the full scale, two subscales of social responsibility were formed: Moral Fulfilment of the Justified Expectations of Others and Adherence to Social Prescriptions. The full social responsibility scale was significantly related to helpfulness only in the difficult‐escape condition. Further analyses including the subscales showed that the component Moral Fulfilment of the Justified Expectations of Others correlated positively with helping in the easy‐escape condition. Results were interpreted as showing that specific profiles of personality variables are associated with helpfulness in the easy‐escape and difficult‐escape conditions. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Counter-compensatory inter-vivos transfers and parental altruism: compatibility or orthogonality?

The intersection of the standard altruism hypothesis with the quite strong evidence that bequests tend to be equal suggests that inter-vivos transfers should be strongly compensatory. Yet the available evidence is not in congruence with this implication. It has therefore been inferred that the motive underlying inter-vivos transfers is not parental altruism. In this paper we present an argument showing why parents who are equally altruistic toward their children optimally transfer more to the child whose earnings are higher. We show that rather than being orthogonal to parental altruism, counter-compensating transfers emanate from such altruism. A key point in the analysis is that parents and children are interlinked in a rich web of (vertical and possibly horizontal) transfers, reverse transfers, direct transfers, and indirect transfers.

SOCIAL ALTRUISM AND CRIME REVISITED: A RESEARCH NOTE ON MEASUREMENT

ABSTRACT Recent research, drawing on a variety of macro-cultural theories, has examined the influence of social altruism, approximated by United Way contributions, on crime rates. This paper extends this work by assessing the impact of an alternative indicator of altruistic values that is less likely to be confounded by social desirability effects. As expected, the results show that public radio contributions are inversely related to violent and property crime rates for a sample of U.S. states. The implications of this finding for the social altruism hypothesis are discussed.

Motives for private transfers over the life cycle: An analytical framework and evidence for Peru

This paper tests for the motives for private income transfers. We consider two motives: altruism and exchange. The question of private-transfer motives is important because such motivation can influence the effects of public income transfers on the distribution of income. Using a household survey for Peru, we find that transfer amounts received increase with recipient pre-transfer income, which contradicts a key prediction of the strong form of the altruism hypothesis but is consistent with exchange. We also find that capital market imperfections are likely to be an important cause of private transfers and that social security benefits `crowd out' the incidence of private transfers.

Testing kin altruism in long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) in a food-sharing experiment

Social grooming and coalition formation have been main foci in studies concerning altruism in monkeys. Results have been inconclusive because the altruistic nature of these behaviors remains unclear. I investigated altruism in a more transparent context via an apparatus in which captive long-tailed macaque females had the choice to exploit a food source themselves or to yield the food to a test partner. I hypothesized that if potential donors behaved altruistically toward kin, they would yield the food sources longer to kin than to nonkin. Of 11 tested potential donors, 8 did not discriminate between daughters or sisters and nonkin. Thus, the experiments do not support the kin altruism hypothesis. Three females let their youngest offspring have more food than matched juvenile nonrelatives. Behavioral observations strongly suggested,however, that it was primarily spiteful behavior toward juvenile nonrelatives that caused the differences between kin and nonkin in these three cases.

Parental Altruism and Inter Vivos Transfers: Theory and Evidence

This paper uses PSID data on the extended family to test whether inter vivos transfers from parents to children are motivated by altruism. Specifically, the paper tests whether an increase by one dollar in the income of parents actively making transfers to a child coupled with a one dollar reduction in that child's income results in the parents' increasing their transfer to the child by one dollar. This restriction on parental and child transfer‐income derivatives is derived for the standard altruism model augmented to include uncertainty and liquidity constraints. These additional elements pin down the timing of inter vivos transfers. The method used to estimate income‐transfer derivatives takes into account unobserved heterogeneity across families in the degree of altruism. The findings strongly reject the altruism hypothesis. Redistributing one dollar from a recipient child to donor parents leads to less than a 13‐cent increase in the parents' transfer to the child, far less than the one‐dollar increas...

The altruism question: toward a social-psychological answer

Contents: The Question Posed by Our Concern for Others: Altruism or Egoism? Part I: The Altruism Question in Western Thought.Egoism and Altruism in Western Philosophy. Egoism and Altruism in Early Psychology. The Altruism Question in Contemporary Psychology. Part II: Toward an Answer: The Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis.A Scientific Method for Addressing the Altruism Question. A Three- Path Model of Egoistic and Altruistic Motivation to Help: The Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis. Egoistic Alternatives to the Empathy- Altruism Hypothesis. Part III: Testing the Egoistic Alternatives to the Empathy- Altruism Hypothesis.Aversive-Arousal Reduction. Empathy- Specific Punishment. Empathy-Specific Reward. Part IV: Extensions.Other Possible Sources of Altruistic Motivation: The Altruistic Personality. Implications and Limitations of the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis.

The Logic of the Empathy- Altruism Hypothesis

The Logic of the Empathy- Altruism Hypothesis

Problems with the altruism hypothesis

Problems with the altruism hypothesis