Pure Altruism Research Articles

Inter-Household private transfers and underlying motives: evidence for Bulgaria

The effects of interactions between private transfer behaviour and income redistribution policies depend on the motives underlying private income transfers. This paper tests for two different potential motives: pure altruism versus simple exchange, in the presence of capital market imperfections. Using household survey data for Bulgaria, microeconometric evidence is found that both motives are in effect. We also find evidence that capital market imperfections are likely to be binding for consumption smoothing, and hence are an important cause of private transfers. The results indicate that social security benefits "crowd out" the amount of private transfers received but not the incidence of private transfers. Finally, private transfers play an important role as a safety net as they significantly decrease poverty rates and the inequality of income distribution.

Inducements for medical and health research: issues for the profession of nursing

Inducements, incentives, reimbursements and payment to subjects for participation in research projects raise many practical, professional and philosophical issues for nurses. Nurses are enjoined, either formally as research co-participants or informally as patients' professional carers, in any research which involves their patients. This role inescapably brings significant ethical obligations, which include those of bioethical audit. A review of current international guidelines on reimbursement recommendations indicates that researchers select one of several paradigms which range from the 'commercial market model' of supply and demand to that of pure un-reimbursed altruism. In this latter, volunteers not only give their bodies and emotional commitment, but also sacrifice their time and convenience. Inducement is defined as the provision of resources or rewards which exceed the 'resource neutral' compensation for legitimate expense. If potential volunteers are truly free to make an informed choice to participate in research, no ethical compromise exists if inducements are offered; but by so doing both the research team and the volunteer patients have shifted the ethos of their research from caritas and altruism to one of a simple commercial relationship. Inducements are inappropriate when offered to those who are 'ethically captive' in the sense that autonomy of choice may be compromised. In contemporary nursing practice, research involvement is both frequent and desirable. A perspective of current debate about inducements for volunteering, including legal and ethical issues, empowers nurses to protect the patients or clients in their care.

Neural Responses to Taxation and Voluntary Giving Reveal Motives for Charitable Donations

Civil societies function because people pay taxes and make charitable contributions to provide public goods. One possible motive for charitable contributions, called "pure altruism," is satisfied by increases in the public good no matter the source or intent. Another possible motive, "warm glow," is only fulfilled by an individual's own voluntary donations. Consistent with pure altruism, we find that even mandatory, tax-like transfers to a charity elicit neural activity in areas linked to reward processing. Moreover, neural responses to the charity's financial gains predict voluntary giving. However, consistent with warm glow, neural activity further increases when people make transfers voluntarily. Both pure altruism and warm-glow motives appear to determine the hedonic consequences of financial transfers to the public good.

Mixed Feelings: Theories and Evidence of Warm Glow and Altruism

This paper presents theoretical and empirical analyses of experiments that test competing theories of altruism, including pure altruism (a preference for the well-being of others), warm glow (a good feeling from giving) and impure altruism (a combination of pure altruism and warm glow). These theories produce different predictions regarding crowding out, i.e., the reduction in private donations due to public spending. Variations on dictator experiments involving both students and charities examine the incidence of crowding out and provide a new direct measure of the effect of giving on feelings. The results indicate that crowding out is incomplete, i.e., less than dollar for dollar. The evidence on warm glow suggests mixed feelings: giving may be associated with good or bad feelings, depending on the context. As a way to resolve apparent inconsistencies and reconcile the evidence on crowding out and feelings, this paper proposes a theory of conditional altruism, which extends previous models to incorporate social norms that arise in the workplace, marketplace and laboratory.

Public-good valuation and intra-family allocation

I derive values of marginal changes in a public good for two-person households, measured alternatively by household member i’s willingness to pay (WTP) for the good on behalf of the household, WTP i (H), or by the sum of individual WTP values across family members, WTP(C). Households are assumed to allocate their resources in efficient Nash bargains over private and common household goods. WTP i (H) is then defined by trade-offs between the public good and the household good, and WTP(C) by trade-offs of between the public good and private goods. WTP i (H) is found to be higher (lower) than WTP(C) when member i has a relatively high (low) marginal valuation of the public good, but tends on average to equal WTP(C). As a consequence, individuals tend to represent households correctly on average when questioned about the household’s WTP for a public good, even when they are purely selfish and answer truthfully. Adding all members’ WTP answers on behalf of the household then leads to double counting. Pure and paternalistic altruism (the latter attached to consumption of the public good) move each member’s WTP on behalf of the household closer to the true sum of individual WTP, but only paternalistic altruism raises this sum.

Entrepreneurship and pure altruism: Reconciling the irreconcilable? Evidence from a New Zealand mail-order firm

This article examines the existence of altruism in the formation of a firm and argues that altruism can coexist with the most demanding form of capitalism: Schumpeterian creative destruction. Moreover, pure altruism is seen to be a precursor to the accumulation of capital, not an event ex post. Such a notion suggests a re-examination of views of altruistic behaviour wherein altruism is reduced purely to variant forms of self-interest and reciprocity.

Justice as a virtue: An analysis of Aristotle’s virtue of justice

People currently regard justice as the main principle of institutions and society, while in ancient Greek people took it as the virtue of citizens. This article analyzes Aristotle’s virtue of justice in his method of virtue ethics, discussing the nature of virtue, how justice is the virtue of citizens, what kind of virtue the justice of citizens is, and the prospect of the virtue of justice against a background of institutional justice. Since virtue can be said to be a specific individual character, Aristotle also defines the virtue of justice as the character of justice, with which citizens act justly and desire to do what is just. The virtue of justice is also an individual ethical virtue, differing from others for it is at the same time a social ethic. We can call the virtue of justice a “non-individual individual ethical virtue.” It has been explained as between pure altruism and egoism, which is a wrong explanation. John Rawls regards justice as the first virtue of social institutions, challenging Aristotle’s virtue of justice, an assertion which also needs further deliberation.

Patient expectations of fair complaint handling in hospitals: empirical data

BackgroundA common finding in several studies is patients' dissatisfaction with complaint handling in health care. The reasons why are for the greater part unknown. The key to an answer may be found in a better understanding of patients' expectations. We investigated patients' expectations of complaint handling in hospitals.MethodsSubjects were patients who had lodged a complaint at the complaint committees of 74 hospitals in the Netherlands. A total of 424 patients (response 75%) completed a written questionnaire at the start of the complaint procedures. Derived from justice theory, we asked what they expected from fair procedures, fair communication and fair outcome of complaint handling.ResultsThe predominant reason for complainants to lodge a complaint was to prevent the incident from happening again. Complainants expected fair procedures from the complaint committee, in particular an impartial position. This was most important to 87% of the complainants. They also expected to be treated respectfully. Furthermore, they expected the hospital and the professional involved to respond to their complaint. A change in hospital performances was the most wanted outcome of complaint handling, according to 79% of the complainants. They also expected disclosure from the professionals. Professionals should admit a mistake when it had occurred. More complainants (65%) considered it most important to get an explanation than an apology (41%). Only 32% of complainants expected the professional to make an effort to restore the doctor-patient relationship. A minority of complainants (7%) wanted financial compensation.ConclusionNearly all complainants want to prevent the incident from happening again, not out of pure altruism, but in order to restore their sense of justice. We conclude that complaint handling that does not allow for change is unlikely to meet patients' expectations. Secondly, complaint handling should not be left exclusively to complaint committees, the responses of hospital and professionals are indispensable.

Sharing Tips with Strangers: Exploiting Gift Culture in Computer Gaming

The aim of this study was to look at motivations behind altruistic behavior in virtual communities by studying the sharing of game tips by experienced gamers. We examine several possible motivations (pure altruism, generalized reciprocity, and reputation) and qualitatively analyze tip types in terms of usefulness, visibility, and skill level. We found that in games that do not support a "performance stage" for skill demonstration, players often share game tips as a strategy to attract attention. To a certain degree, reciprocity can be used to explain small favor exchanges, but earning social reputation is often a much stronger motivating factor.

When good overcomes bad: The impact of volunteers on those they help

This qualitative study examines the impact of a personal encounter with perceived goodness, as represented by volunteers who are perceived as altruistic by those they help. It focuses on the encounter between at-risk street youths and lay volunteers in a mobile outreach service. The findings reveal that the street youths perceived the volunteers as representing pure altruism, and this stimulated several positive processes. Meeting the volunteers raised their awareness of giving without expecting a reward, which sharply contradicts their view of the world as a battlefield. Consequently, they understood and partially internalized the idea of non-material gratification. In some cases, the example set by the volunteers inspired the young people to consider volunteering themselves. Finally, they were able to generalize the altruistic image to the entire service and overcome their initial objections to a service run by the establishment. The proposed explanation, related to positive psychology, refers to the contrast between the example of the volunteers and the self centeredness of the street youths, which shifted slightly as a result.

Non-reciprocal altruism may be attributable to hyperbolicity in social discounting function

Humans show altruism even for chance acquaintances whom they will never meet again (non-reciprocal altruism). With respect to evolutionary and economic perspectives, reciprocal altruism is not actually puzzling, because reciprocal altruism maximizes subjects' benefit/fitness in the long run; while non-reciprocal (pure) altruism still presents a challenge to evolutionary biology and neuroeconomics. Understanding neuropsychological bases of non-reciprocal altruism/generosity for unrelated people is also important for neuropsychiatry, because several types of impulsive psychiatrics (e.g., social phobia, substance abusers, psychopaths) often have reduced altruism/generosity for other people, which is associated with their problematic/impulsive social behavior. Regarding the relationship between impulsivity and reciprocal altruism, it has been shown that subjects who are impulsive in intertemporal choice (having a large time-discounting rate) have low degrees of reciprocal altruism, which is in line with economic theories and neuropharmacologically treatable with serotonin/norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors. However, little is known regarding the relationship between non-reciprocal altruism and discounting behavior, and neuropsychological processing underlying the relationship. Recently, Jones and Rachlin reported that generosity for other individuals with different social distances follows a hyperbolic discounting function, which has been employed to describe inconsistent time-discounting. In this study, I propose that non-reciprocal (pure) altruism may be, at least partially, attributable to hyperbolicity of a social discounting function (inconsistency in "interpersonal choice"). Neuropsychological mechanisms underlying interpersonally-inconsistent social discounting and possible implications for neuropsychopharmacological treatments for impulsive psychiatrics' problematic social behavior are discussed.

Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives: Evidence from Personnel Data

We present evidence on whether workers have social preferences by comparing workers' productivity under relative incentives, where individual effort imposes a negative externality on others, with their productivity under piece rates, where it does not. We find that the productivity of the average worker is at least 50 percent higher under piece rates than under relative incentives. We show that this is due to workers partially internalizing the negative externality their effort imposes on others under relative incentives, especially when working alongside their friends. Under piece rates, the relationship among workers does not affect productivity. Further analysis reveals that workers internalize the externality only when they can monitor others and be monitored. This rules out pure altruism as the underlying motive of workers' behavior.

Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives: Evidence from Personnel Data*

We present evidence on whether workers have social preferences by comparing workers' productivity under relative incentives, where individual effort imposes a negative externality on others, to their productivity under piece rates, where it does not. We find that the productivity of the average worker is at least 50 percent higher under piece rates than under relative incentives. We show that this is due to workers partially internalizing the negative externality their effort imposes on others under relative incentives, especially when working alongside their friends. Under piece rates, the relationship among workers does not affect productivity. Further analysis reveals that workers internalize the externality only when they can monitor others and be monitored. This rules out pure altruism as the underlying motive of workers' behavior.

Altruism, social potential and regional development

This paper is devoted to methods for specification of region. We provide examples for the Košice region that is described by the accessible characteristics. Our main objective is to consider broadening of these characteristics for more endogenous factors such as altruism or social capital. We would like to examine these endogenous characteristics within the model of Public Private Partnership also called Common Public Procurement. Furthermore, we analyze the pure and impure altruism in the context of the application of Public Private Partnership. This short study results in the conceptual diagram that shows how the social capital works in general, the description of the diagram gives further important details and allows understanding of the evolved concept.

Does corporate philanthropy exist?: business giving to the arts in the U.K.

This paper addresses the question of the existence of corporate philanthropy. It proposes a framework for analysing corporate philanthropy along the dimensions of business/society interest and primary/secondary stakeholder focus. The framework is then applied in order to understand business involvement with the arts in the U.K. A unique dataset of 60 texts which describe different firms' involvement with the Arts is analysed using formal content analysis to uncover the motivations for business involvement. Cluster analysis is then used in order to identify motivational groupings. Two broad types of involvement are identified – advertisers and legitimators. Only in one case of the 60 is there the potential to observe pure altruism. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it provides a clear framework to understand the motivations for corporate giving and applies this using empirical data. Secondly, this research finds little evidence, if at all, of corporate philanthropy in the context of firms giving to the Arts in the U.K.

Discounting and altruism to future decision-makers

Is discounting of future decision-makers’ consumption utilities consistent with “pure” altruism toward those decision-makers, that is, a concern that they are better off according to their own, likewise forward-looking, preferences? It turns out that the answer is positive for many but not all discount functions used in the economics literature. In particular, “hyperbolic” discounting of the form used by Phelps and Pollak (Rev. Econ. Studies 35 (1968) 201) and Laibson (Quart. J. Econ. 112 (1997) 443) is consistent with exponential altruism towards future generations. More generally, we establish a one-to-one relationship between discount functions and altruism weight systems, and provide sufficient, as well as necessary, conditions for discount functions to be consistent with pure altruism.

Public-Good Valuation and Intrafamily Allocation

I derive values of marginal changes in a public good for two-person households, measured alternatively by household member i's willingness to pay (WTP) for the good on behalf of the household, WTPi(H), or by the sum of individual WTP values across family members, WTP(C). Households are assumed to allocate their resources in efficient Nash bargains over private and common household goods. WTPi(H) is then found by trading off the public good against household goods, and WTP(C) by trading the public good off against private goods. I then find that WTPi(H) is higher (lower) when member i has a high (low) marginal valuation of the public good, but on average represents WTP(C) correctly. Individuals then tend to represent households correctly on average when questioned about the household's WTP for a public good, even when they are purely selfish and answer truthfully. Counting all members' WTP answers on behalf of the household then leads to double counting. Pure and paternalistic altruism (the latter attached to consumption of the public good) move each member's WTP on behalf of the household closer to the true aggregate WTP, but only the latter raises aggregate WTP.

Altruism, evolution, and welfare economics

Henrich clearly presents the convincing evidence that the evolution of prosocial preferences—altruism and altruistic punishment—is both theoretically possible and empirically present in human populations. Henrich convinces us using only the most restrictive arguments. If one goes beyond the assumptions of one-gene, one-trait, or recognizes the existence of “social cognition” (Caporael, 1997), the case for the existence of prosocial behavior is overwhelming. Furthermore, while Henrich is probably correct in saying that large-scale social cooperation is unique to the human species, mounting evidence suggests that prosocial behavior is also present in such diverse non-human species as lions, meerkats, fire ants, and Arabian babblers (Clutton-Brock, 2002). So why is the reaction against the notion of pure altruism so strong in both economics and biology? A likely reason is that it goes against the dominant cultural belief in progress through competition among individuals. Both evolutionary biology and political economy matured in Victorian England where Darwin’s careful and cautious argument for evolution by natural selection was recast as “survival of the fittest”, a metaphor which fit the dog-eat-dog world of commercial society. Rugged individualism is reflected in the gene-based reductionism of biology as well as the agent-based reductionism of welfare economics (Bergh and van den Gowdy, 2003). In his contribution, Henrich establishes the theoretical basis for cultural group selection based on large-scale cooperation. He shows that the existence of prosocial behavior cannot be explained by individual-based characteristic alone such as kin selection, reciprocal altruism or costly signaling. This does not contradict Darwinian natural selection which can operate on any statistically reliable pattern. Patterns of culture may vary widely in human societies based on the different kinds of cultural transmission including conformist transmission (a short cut to reliable information), prestige-based transmission, punishment of non-conformists, and normative conformity by which people want their behavior to match that of the group. The interplay between these kinds of cultural transmission and the in-

Supporting renewable energy on liberalised markets: green electricity between additionality and consumer sovereignty

The German feed-in regulation has been perhaps the most effective promotional policy for green electricity. However, with the growing momentum of the liberalisation process the current regulation is challenged by structural problems about how to address the demand side. Price regulation lefts only little room for private green electricity market activities. Moreover, the success of the feed-in regulation depends on a strict differentiation of the political segment and the emerging green electricity markets. The question, therefore, is about the role green electricity markets can (or should) perform in general. In order to evaluate green electricity markets the additionality criteria is frequently used, implying that markets are only desirable if they lead to additional environmental effects. The additionality criteria has two implications: First, transformed into individual behaviour, additionality implies that consumers are assumed to act as pure altruists. However, there is evidence from empirical studies that green electricity consumers behave more as impure altruists: they are not so much interested in the objective environmental impact of their behaviour but more objected to receive a private satisfaction from buying an environmental friendly product. Whereas theoretical models in the case of pure altruism suggest that private activities crowd out totally when policy becomes active in supporting the public good, this crowding out disappears in the case of impure altruism. Second, using end-state criteria such as the additionality principle as pre-condition, and neglecting process criteria such as consumer sovereignty, means to prevent establishing competitive market process right at the outset in principle.

Preference Evolution and Reciprocity

This paper provides an evolutionary theory of reciprocity as an aspect of preference interdependence. It is shown that reciprocal preferences, which place negative weight on the payoffs of materialists and positive weight on the payoffs of sufficiently altruistic individuals can invade a population of materialists in a class of aggregative games under both assortative and nonassortative matching. In comparison with simpler specifications of preference interdependence (such as pure altruism or spite), the survival of such preferences is therefore less sensitive to details of the evolutionary selection process. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, D62.