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Risking Your Life without a Second Thought: Intuitive Decision-Making and Extreme Altruism

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  • David G Rand
  • Ziv G Epstein

Abstract

When faced with the chance to help someone in mortal danger, what is our first response? Do we leap into action, only later considering the risks to ourselves? Or must instinctive self-preservation be overcome by will-power in order to act? We investigate this question by examining the testimony of Carnegie Hero Medal Recipients (CHMRs), extreme altruists who risked their lives to save others. We collected published interviews with CHMRs where they described their decisions to help. We then had participants rate the intuitiveness versus deliberativeness of the decision-making process described in each CHMR statement. The statements were judged to be overwhelmingly dominated by intuition; to be significantly more intuitive than a set of control statements describing deliberative decision-making; and to not differ significantly from a set of intuitive control statements. This remained true when restricting to scenarios in which the CHMRs had sufficient time to reflect before acting if they had so chosen. Text-analysis software found similar results. These findings suggest that high-stakes extreme altruism may be largely motivated by automatic, intuitive processes.

Suggested Citation

  • David G Rand & Ziv G Epstein, 2014. "Risking Your Life without a Second Thought: Intuitive Decision-Making and Extreme Altruism," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(10), pages 1-6, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0109687
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0109687
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    1. repec:cup:judgdm:v:15:y:2020:i:6:p:1037-1043 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Christian Hilbe & Moshe Hoffman & Martin A. Nowak, 2015. "Cooperate without Looking in a Non-Repeated Game," Games, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-15, September.
    3. Bault, Nadège & Fahrenfort, Johannes J. & Pelloux, Benjamin & Ridderinkhof, K. Richard & van Winden, Frans, 2017. "An affective social tie mechanism: Theory, evidence, and implications," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 152-175.
    4. Ma-Kellams, Christine & Lerner, Jennifer S., 2016. "Trust Your Gut or Think Carefully? Examining Whether an Intuitive versus a Systematic Mode of Thought Produces Greater Empathic Accuracy," Working Paper Series 16-017, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    5. Artavia-Mora, Luis & Bedi, Arjun S. & Rieger, Matthias, 2017. "Intuitive help and punishment in the field," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 133-145.
    6. Ma-Kellams, Christine & Lerner, Jennifer, 2016. "Trust your gut or think carefully? Examining whether an intuitive, versus a systematic, mode of thought produces greater empathic accuracy," Scholarly Articles 37093806, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    7. Artavia-Mora, Luis & Bedi, Arjun S. & Rieger, Matthias, 2018. "Help, Prejudice and Headscarves," IZA Discussion Papers 11460, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Shawn A. Rhoads & Kruti M. Vekaria & Katherine O’Connell & Hannah S. Elizabeth & David G. Rand & Megan N. Kozak Williams & Abigail A. Marsh, 2023. "Unselfish traits and social decision-making patterns characterize six populations of real-world extraordinary altruists," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, December.
    9. Daniel FARHAT, 2023. "The economics and evolution of heroic behavior," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania / Editura Economica, vol. 0(3(636), A), pages 5-20, Autumn.
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    13. Sachin Banker & Joowon Park, 2020. "Evaluating prosocial COVID-19 messaging frames: Evidence from a field study on Facebook," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 15(6), pages 1037-1043, November.

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