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Materialistic, pro-social, anti-social, or mixed – A within-subject examination of self- and other-regarding preferences

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  • Sadrieh, Abdolkarim
  • Schröder, Marina

Abstract

We introduce an experimental setup to elicit subjects’ materialistic, pro-social, and anti-social preferences. We find one third of the population exhibits mixed social preferences, choosing to give, to destroy, and to keep some payoffs. Most others are either materialistic, keeping all payoffs, or pro-social, giving some and keeping some, but not destroying payoffs. For individuals with mixed social preferences, giving and destruction are positively correlated, but do not seem to be influenced by payoff comparisons. We find that full information and experimenter demand may increase the extent of pro-social preferences, but do not affect the extent of anti-social preferences or the distribution of social types in the population.

Suggested Citation

  • Sadrieh, Abdolkarim & Schröder, Marina, 2016. "Materialistic, pro-social, anti-social, or mixed – A within-subject examination of self- and other-regarding preferences," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 114-124.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:63:y:2016:i:c:p:114-124
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2016.05.009
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    3. Gangadharan, Lata & Grossman, Philip J. & Vecci, Joe, 2021. "Moving on up: The impact of income mobility on antisocial behaviour," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    4. Sadrieh, Abdolkarim & Schröder, Marina, 2017. "Acts of helping and harming," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 77-79.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Altruism; Joy of destruction; Other-regarding behavior; Giving and destruction; Fairness; Spite;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers

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