Competitive Altruism Research Articles

Magnify Cascades of Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) on Social Networks: The Roles of User, Product, and Relationship Characteristics

Firms are increasingly relying on electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), in the form of online reviews and social media posts, to sell their products or services. A pivotal component of managing eWOM is to understand and, potentially influence, how one consumer's eWOM can lead to another's—a process called behavioral cascading. While prior eWOM research has established the importance of behavioral cascading between connected users, there is little understanding of what factors could impact the likelihood of such cascades. To address this gap, we draw on the theory of competitive altruism to identify several moderators of behavioral cascading in eWOM. Our empirical tests using an online review dataset from Yelp show that eWOM cascading between a followee and a follower is less likely when the followee is a high-status member, a female, or has a strong connection with the follower; and more likely when the product in consideration is inexpensive. These findings provide valuable insights about the behavioral cascading process in eWOM and hold implications for social media platforms and sellers to facilitate the cascades of eWOM between connected consumers.

Crucial to Me and my society: How collectivist culture influences individual pro-environmental behavior through environmental values

While numerous studies have verified the norm-sustainability relationship, few have delved deeply into this set of relationships. To address this research gap, this study theoretically analyzes the roles of collectivist culture and individual self-construal in the norm-sustainability relationship in the Asian context. Drawing on the value-basis theory and the competitive altruism hypothesis and employing cultural data from an Asian context with hierarchical regression analysis, empirical findings indicate that collectivist culture positively promotes pro-environmental behavior, with altruistic values and biospheric values mediating this positive relationship. At the same time, individual socioeconomic status positively moderates the norm-sustainability relationship. The theoretical contribution of this study lies in theoretically identifying collectivist culture as a deep-seated cultural factor triggering the norm-sustainability relationship in the Asian context. Examining the moderating role of self-construal in the norm-sustainability relationship sheds light on the reasons for the gap between individual pro-environmental behavioral intentions and actions in the Asian context. Lastly, this study provides a new cultural perspective for understanding the formation of biospheric values. Policy implications suggest a focus on the collective atmosphere of collectivism in Asia to stimulate individual environmental responsibility alongside the cultivation of rational environmental perspectives to balance participation across socioeconomic strata in societal and economic development.

Chimpanzees engage in competitive altruism in a triadic ultimatum game

Partner choice promotes competition among individuals to be selected as a cooperative partner, a phenomenon referred to as competitive altruism. We explored whether chimpanzees engage in competitive altruism in a triadic Ultimatum Game where two proposers can send offers simultaneously or consecutively to a responder who can only accept one of the two competing offers. In a dyadic control condition only one proposer at a time could send an offer to the responder. Chimpanzees increased their offers across trials in the competitive triadic, but not in the dyadic control condition. Chimpanzees also increased their offers after being rejected in previous triadic trials. Furthermore, we found that chimpanzees, under specific conditions, outcompete first proposers in triadic consecutive trials before the responder could choose which offer to accept by offering more than what is expected if they acted randomly or simply offered the smallest possible amount. These results suggest that competitive altruism in chimpanzees did not emerge just as a by-product of them trying to increase over previous losses. Chimpanzees might consider how others’ interactions affect their outcomes and engage in strategies to maximize their chances of being selected as cooperative partners.

Resonance of Review Behavior: Will People Follow in Their Friends’ Footsteps?

This study investigates factors affecting users’ review behavior on electronic word-of-mouth platforms, with a focus on the motivating influence of friends’ review contributions. Drawing on the theory of competitive altruism, the authors analyze how users perceive reputation-related competition on a platform. They additionally identify attributes related to friends, users, and companies that influence users’ review contributions. The authors obtained data from Yelp and constructed a data set of more than two million user–restaurant–week triads for analysis. The findings suggest that amateur friends’ reviews more strongly affect a user's likelihood of reviewing than expert friends’ reviews. In addition, users who have gained expert status are less influenced by their friends’ reviews than amateur users. As users’ review experience and social reach increase, the roles of friends’ reviews diminish when a person has a lower status than their friends. Moreover, the motivations stay focused on the reviewed company and do not spill over to other companies even when the motivations are recurring and prolonged. Following expert friends leads to user reviews that are more readable. Competing with low-status friends can afford users a reputational advantage particularly when these users have a higher status.

When Helping Behaviors Induce Hostile Reactions? A Perspective of Competitive Altruism

When Helping Behaviors Induce Hostile Reactions? A Perspective of Competitive Altruism

Communicating the cost of your altruism makes you cool—competitive altruism and sexual selection in a real-life charity situation

Maintaining a good reputation is crucial for humans. Altruism, e.g. charity, may serve as a costly signal that enhances reputation based on the real or communicated cost. Fundraising via charity running triggers competitive altruism when potential donors donate in reaction to the reputation increase of the fundraiser. Using real-life data of marathonists and half-marathonists (388 runners) and their 9281 donors, the present research focuses on how the communicated cost and goal of a charity run affected the potential donors. We analysed the introductory texts of the runners presented online according to the cost and the social benefit of the fundraising communicated by them. We have shown that emphasizing more the subjective cost of running and the social benefit of the goal, or writing a longer text, attracted more donors and, even though the average amount of donation per donor did not increase, still lead to a greater amount of donations collected overall by the fundraiser. It was also shown that a higher communicated subjective cost resulted in a higher ratio of opposite-sex donors, both in the case of male and female runners, suggesting that the communication of the cost of an altruistic act might be the object of sexual selection.Significance statementA good reputation is crucial for humans, as a reputable person enjoys several benefits. One way to maintain a good reputation is to be altruistic, e.g. doing charity. A seemingly high cost and a socially accepted goal may result in a higher reputation. Using data from a charity running community we demonstrate that fundraisers who emphasize their subjective cost (how difficult to run), and emphasize the good goal of the charity, attract more donors, and even though the average amount of each donation does not increase, a higher number of donors results in a greater amount of donations collected overall. Talking about the difficulties of the charity run results in a higher ratio of opposite-sex donors. Our results may be helpful to plan more successful charity events or to make a human community more altruistic and cooperative in general.

Motivation behind review provision in online travel communities: do hometowner contributions matter?

PurposeOnline reviews have become increasingly important and numerous studies have noted the effect of social factors on the review provision of users. The purpose of this study is to investigate how hometowner contributions, which are defined as prior reviews posted by users from the same city, affect the quality of reviews by focal users.Design/methodology/approachBased on the theories of competitive altruism, pure altruism and reciprocity, as well as several social influence theories, a conceptual framework is constructed to explain user contribution behavior. In addition, empirical models are established based on 831,737 reviews of 919 hotels on Tripadvisor.FindingsThe quality of reviews by hometowners can significantly motivate subsequent users to contribute high-quality reviews. This positive effect is stronger than the effect of previous contributions by non-hometowners. The effect of hometowner contribution is amplified in users with limited review-posting experience and/or in those from countries with a considerable cultural distance from the target destination.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides the hospitality literature with new insights into the effect of social factors on the review provision of users in the context of online hotel review websites. The results also present numerous practical implications for online travel communities.Originality/valueThis study is an early attempt to analyze the effect of prior hometowner contributions on the subsequent contribution decisions of focal users. Thus, this study provides a satisfactory starting point for determining whether the review provision of focal users can be affected differently by prior contributions from their peers from different categories.

Gossip and competitive altruism support cooperation in a Public Good game.

When there is an opportunity to gain a positive reputation, individuals are more willing to sacrifice their immediate self-interest. Partner choice creates opportunities for competitive altruism, i.e. individuals compete to be regarded as more generous and to be chosen for future partnerships. Tests of the competitive altruism hypothesis have focused so far on reputation based on direct observation, whereas the role of gossip has not been theoretically and empirically addressed. Partner choice can create an incentive to cooperate and to send truthful messages, but it can also work in the opposite direction. In order to understand the consequences of partner choice on cooperation and gossip, we designed an experimental study in which participants played a sequence of Public Goods games and gossip rounds. In our two treatments, we observed that cooperation increased when there was an opportunity to be selected, but also that cooperators sent more honest messages than defectors, and that this strategy was prevalent in the treatment in which inter-group competition was implemented. We also found evidence that participants detached themselves from the information more often when lying. Taken together, our study fills a theoretical and empirical gap by showing that partner choice increases both cooperation and honesty of gossip.This article is part of the theme issue ‘The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling’.

Men increase time spent on a charitable task when in the presence of women and other men: Evidence of competitive altruism in online mating scenarios

Previous research shows that competition can increase altruistic behaviour, however, the majority of such research focuses on financial costs and so our understanding is currently limited. Subsequently, the present study explored how competitive altruism can affect prosocial behaviour where time spent is the currency, using a real world charity. A sample of 67 men and 71 women completed the online altruistic task. As hypothesised, significant differences in giving behaviour due to competition were present in men but not women, suggesting that men use time spent here as a signal in mate choice scenarios. These findings therefore expand upon previous research on financial altruism, using artificial and/or hypothetical scenarios, by demonstrating that competitive altruism can be applied to real-world scenarios, where prosocial behaviours are of benefit. It also builds on previous research showing that men can compete with other men to display their altruistic nature to potential mates.

Circular economy engagement: Altruism, status, and cultural orientation as drivers for sustainable consumption

The Circular Economy (CE) is posited as a solution to the rise of environmental impact with economic prosperity by introducing alternative systems of production, consumption, and disposal. Although circular economy has received recent attention, CE engagement is still underdeveloped, suggesting the need for data-driven information supporting its drivers to achieve a higher level of implementation. Thus, we developed a conceptual model for understanding the antecedents of CE engagement and green buying, exploring the effects that need for social status, pure and competitive altruism play as drivers of those. The model was empirically tested it using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Our substantive findings indicate that pure altruism is the main motivation driving CE engagement and green buying, while competitive altruism and need for social status, did not reach significance. However, we noted that both types of altruism moderate the effect of the need for social in green buying behavior. Additionally, we found that CE engagement is a significant driver of green buying. Overall, we were able to explain 20% of the variation in CE engagement, and 52% in green buying behavior. By combining identity goals and consumer's motivation for engaging in CE, we contribute with knowledge for the elaboration of strategies and public policies for enhancing and stimulating circular economy acceptance from a consumer's perspective.

Do Online Friends Bring Out the Best in Us? The Effect of Friend Contributions on Online Review Provision

User-generated online reviews are crucial for consumer decision-making, but suffer from under- provision, quality degradation, and imbalances across products. This research investigates whether “friend contributions cues,” in the form of highlighted reviews written by online friends, can motivate users to write more and higher-quality reviews. Noting the public-good nature of online reviews, we draw upon theories of pure altruism and competitive altruism to understand the effects of friend-contribution cues on review provision. We test our hypotheses using data from Yelp, and find positive effects of friend contribution cues. Users are three times more likely to provide a review after a recent friend review than after a recent stranger review, and this effect cannot be solely explained by homophily. Furthermore, reviews written after a friend’s review tend to be of higher quality, longer, and more novel. In addition, friend reviews tend to have a stronger effect on less-experienced users and less-reviewed products/services, suggesting friend- contribution cues can help mitigate the scarcity of contributions on “long-tail” products and from infrequent contributors. Our findings hold important implications for research and practice in the private provision of online reviews.

Why cooperation is not running away

A growing number of experimental and theoretical studies show the importance of partner choice as a mechanism to promote the evolution of cooperation, especially in humans. In this paper, we focus on the question of the precise quantitative level of cooperation that should evolve under this mechanism. When individuals compete to be chosen by others, their level of investment in cooperation evolves towards higher values, a process called competitive altruism, or runaway cooperation. Using a classic adaptive dynamics model, we first show that when the cost of changing partner is low, this runaway process can lead to a profitless escalation of cooperation. In the extreme, when partner choice is entirely frictionless, cooperation even increases up to a level where its cost entirely cancels out its benefit. That is, at evolutionary equilibrium, individuals gain the same payoff than if they had not cooperated at all. Second, importing models from matching theory in economics we, however, show that when individuals can plastically modulate their choosiness in function of their own cooperation level, partner choice stops being a runaway competition to outbid others and becomes a competition to form the most optimal partnerships. In this case, when the cost of changing partner tends towards zero, partner choice leads to the evolution of the socially optimum level of cooperation. This last result could explain the observation that human cooperation seems to be often constrained by considerations of social efficiency.

Recycling cooperation and buying status

PurposeThis study aims to reconcile previous research that has provided mixed results regarding motivation for sustainable behaviors: pure altruism (cooperation) or competitive altruism (status). Drawing on evolutionary altruism and identity-based motivation, the authors propose that a match between pure (competitive) altruism and individualistic (collectivistic) identity goals enhance consumers’ motivations to engage in recycling (green buying).Design/methodology/approachThree experimental studies show how pure and competitive altruism are associated with specific sustainable consumption (Study 1) and how altruism types should be matched with identity goals to motivate sustainable consumption (Studies 2 and 3).FindingsStudy 1 shows that pure altruism is associated with recycling but not with green buying. Studies 2 and 3 show that pure (competitive) altruism and individualistic (collectivistic) goals lead to higher recycling (green buying) intentions.Research limitations/implicationsThe present research extends previous findings by showing that pure and competitive are indeed associated with specific sustainable behaviors. The authors suggest that the interaction between motives and identity goals can lead to a greater impact on recycling and green buying intentions.Practical implicationsPublic policymakers and companies will benefit by better understanding how specific combinations of altruism types and identity goals can foster recycling or green buying intentions.Originality/valueThis research is the first to show how matches between pure and competitive altruism types and individualistic and collectivistic identity goals affect consumers’ motivations to engage in recycling and green buying.

Children engage in competitive altruism

Humans cultivate their reputations as good cooperators, sometimes even competing with group mates, to appear most cooperative to individuals during the process of selecting partners. To investigate the ontogenetic origins of such “competitive altruism,” we presented 5- and 8-year-old children with a dyadic sharing game in which both children simultaneously decided how many rewards to share with each other. The children were either observed by a third-person peer or not. In addition, the children either knew that one of them would be picked for a subsequent collaborative game or had no such knowledge. We found that by 8 years of age, children were more generous in the sharing game not only when their behavior was observed by a third party but also when it could affect their chances of being chosen for a subsequent game. This is the first demonstration of competitive altruism in young children, and as such it underscores the important role of partner choice (and individual awareness of the process) in encouraging human cooperation from an early age.

How Incidental Confidence Influences Self‐Interested Behaviors: A Double‐Edged Sword

AbstractThe present research investigates how incidental confidence influences self‐interested behaviors. It is well established that being in a psychological state of lower confidence causes people to experience psychological aversion that they are motivated to reduce. We study the transfer effect of confidence; people strive to compensate for lower confidence in one domain by obtaining higher status in other unrelated domains. Prior research has linked money with status and suggested that money can increase confidence. Building on this research, we proposed and showed in four experiments that lower incidental confidence increased self‐interested behaviors that brought financial gains. Drawing on research on competitive altruism, we also predicted and found that when altruism, rather than money, was seen as the primary source of status, the effect of incidental confidence reversed such that lower incidental confidence decreased self‐interested behaviors. Data ruled out alternative explanations and provided consistent evidence for the proposed compensatory mechanism. We also discussed theoretical and practical implications of the present research. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Intelligence, competitive altruism, and "clever silliness" may underlie bias in academe.

Why is social bias and its depressing effects on low-status or low-performing groups exaggerated? We show that the higher intelligence of academics has at best a very weak effect on reducing their bias, facilitates superficially justifying their biases, and may make them better at understanding the benefits of social conformity in general and competitive altruism specifically. We foresee a surge in research examining these mechanisms and recommend, meanwhile, reviving and better observing scientific ideals.

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.

Commitments and Contests

This article offers a contribution to the broader theoretical goal of increasing our systematic understanding of the social mechanisms that underlie collective behavior. Specifically, we ask how it is possible that equity can arise in a market situation. Even though fair outcomes can be observed across a wide range of social situations that are not centrally coordinated, we argue that there is scant understanding of how these outcomes are facilitated and what impact they have on interaction patterns. We use experimental game theory to test two mechanisms of preferential association, which is defined as a situation where there is competition for partners and in which two actors have a preference for each other. The first mechanism, committed partnership, is abundant in social life and is exemplified by friendships. The second mechanism, competitive altruism, is the intuitive idea that to secure a desirable matching, one must display desirable behavior. To test the mechanisms, we use a laboratory experiment in which participants play a version of the well-known repeated Ultimatum Game. In our version of the game, players either (a) play each other randomly, (b) according to reputation, or (c) according to preferential association in which players are matched according to a preferred ranking of past player histories. The results suggest that fairness can arise from the reduced risk associated with committing to a desirable partner. This is a study of micro-to-micro mechanisms, investigating the micro-level conditions that produce a particular type of social action, namely, a sustainable equitable division of offerings.

Human Cooperation: The Race to Give

An analysis of online charity donations reveals that, when males make large donations to attractive female fundraisers, other males respond in kind, providing field evidence for 'competitive altruism' in which helpful acts are used as a display to attract partners.

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