IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/femeco/v14y2008i3p23-50.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Altruism in individual and joint-giving decisions: What's gender got to do with it?

Author

Listed:
  • Linda Kamas
  • Anne Preston
  • Sandy Baum

Abstract

This paper uses dictator experiments to examine gender differences in altruistic behavior in the United States when decisions are made individually and jointly. In anonymous individual giving to charity, women give substantially more than men, and in paired settings, mixed-sex groups give the most while all male pairs give the least. Evidence supports social information and negotiation effects as participants change giving toward that of their partners. Social image effects are found only in mixed-sex groups, indicating a gender-based component to the value of the social signal sent. Although men and women appear to have similar influence, the positive social image effect pushes giving in mixed-sex pairs above the sum of the members' individual gifts because the less altruistic partners (usually men) adjust their giving upward more than the more altruistic partners (usually women) reduce giving. Therefore, increasing women's participation in traditionally male spheres of decision making may result in more altruistic economic behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Linda Kamas & Anne Preston & Sandy Baum, 2008. "Altruism in individual and joint-giving decisions: What's gender got to do with it?," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 23-50.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:14:y:2008:i:3:p:23-50
    DOI: 10.1080/13545700801986571
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13545700801986571
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13545700801986571?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hoffman Elizabeth & McCabe Kevin & Shachat Keith & Smith Vernon, 1994. "Preferences, Property Rights, and Anonymity in Bargaining Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 346-380, November.
    2. Bruno S. Frey & Stephan Meier, 2003. "Are Political Economists Selfish and Indoctrinated? Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(3), pages 448-462, July.
    3. Bruno Frey & Stephan Meier, 2005. "Selfish and Indoctrinated Economists?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 165-171, April.
    4. Eckel, Catherine C & Grossman, Philip J, 1998. "Are Women Less Selfish Than Men? Evidence from Dictator Experiments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(448), pages 726-735, May.
    5. James Andreoni & Lise Vesterlund, 2001. "Which is the Fair Sex? Gender Differences in Altruism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 293-312.
    6. Forsythe Robert & Horowitz Joel L. & Savin N. E. & Sefton Martin, 1994. "Fairness in Simple Bargaining Experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 347-369, May.
    7. Frohlich, Norman & Oppenheimer, Joe & Bernard Moore, J., 2001. "Some doubts about measuring self-interest using dictator experiments: the costs of anonymity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 271-290, November.
    8. Solnick, Sara J. & Schweitzer, Maurice E., 1999. "The Influence of Physical Attractiveness and Gender on Ultimatum Game Decisions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 199-215, September.
    9. Bruno S. Frey & Stephan Meier, 2004. "Social Comparisons and Pro-social Behavior: Testing "Conditional Cooperation" in a Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1717-1722, December.
    10. Bolton, Gary E. & Katok, Elena, 1995. "An experimental test for gender differences in beneficent behavior," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 48(3-4), pages 287-292, June.
    11. Ernst Fehr & Michael Naef & Klaus M. Schmidt, 2006. "Inequality Aversion, Efficiency, and Maximin Preferences in Simple Distribution Experiments: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1912-1917, December.
    12. Bram Cadsby, C. & Maynes, Elizabeth, 1998. "Gender and free riding in a threshold public goods game: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 603-620, March.
    13. Gary E. Bolton & Rami Zwick & Elena Katok, 1998. "Dictator game giving: Rules of fairness versus acts of kindness," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 27(2), pages 269-299.
    14. Timothy N. Cason & Vai-Lam Mui, 1998. "Social Influence in the Sequential Dictator Game," Monash Economics Working Papers archive-37, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    15. Bolton Gary E. & Zwick Rami, 1995. "Anonymity versus Punishment in Ultimatum Bargaining," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 95-121, July.
    16. Scharlemann, Jorn P. W. & Eckel, Catherine C. & Kacelnik, Alex & Wilson, Rick K., 2001. "The value of a smile: Game theory with a human face," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 617-640, October.
    17. Nowell, Clifford & Tinkler, Sarah, 1994. "The influence of gender on the provision of a public good," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 25-36, September.
    18. Burnham, Terence C., 2003. "Engineering altruism: a theoretical and experimental investigation of anonymity and gift giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 133-144, January.
    19. Dufwenberg, Martin & Muren, Astri, 2006. "Gender composition in teams," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 50-54, September.
    20. Ben-Ner, Avner & Kong, Fanmin & Putterman, Louis, 2004. "Share and share alike? Gender-pairing, personality, and cognitive ability as determinants of giving," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 581-589, October.
    21. Nancy Buchan & Rachel Croson, 1999. "Gender and Culture: International Experimental Evidence from Trust Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 386-391, May.
    22. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J., 1996. "Altruism in Anonymous Dictator Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 181-191, October.
    23. Bruno S. Frey & Iris Bohnet, 1999. "Social Distance and Other-Regarding Behavior in Dictator Games: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 335-339, March.
    24. Uri Gneezy & Muriel Niederle & Aldo Rustichini, 2003. "Performance in Competitive Environments: Gender Differences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 1049-1074.
    25. Bruno Frey & Stephan Meier, 2004. "In a field experiment," Natural Field Experiments 00243, The Field Experiments Website.
    26. Stephan Meier, 2007. "Do Women Behave Less or More Prosocially than Men?," Public Finance Review, , vol. 35(2), pages 215-232, March.
    27. Gad Saad & Tripat Gill, 2001. "The effects of a recipient's gender in a modified dictator game," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(7), pages 463-466.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jean Kabongo & Kiyoung Chang & Ying Li, 2013. "The Impact of Operational Diversity on Corporate Philanthropy: An Empirical Study of U.S. Companies," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(1), pages 49-65, August.
    2. Linda Kamas & Anne Preston, 2012. "Gender and Social Preferences in the US: An Experimental Study," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(1), pages 135-160, January.
    3. Yoshio Kamijo & Teruyuki Tamura, 2016. "Altruistic and risk preference of individuals and groups," Working Papers SDES-2016-12, Kochi University of Technology, School of Economics and Management, revised Oct 2016.
    4. Kamas, Linda & Preston, Anne, 2015. "Can social preferences explain gender differences in economic behavior?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 525-539.
    5. Yoshio Kamijo & Teruyuki Tamura, 2023. "Risk-Averse and Self-Interested Shifts in Groups in Both Median and Random Rules," Games, MDPI, vol. 14(1), pages 1-21, February.
    6. David Zetland & Marina Della Giusta, 2011. "Focal Points, Gender Norms and Reciprocation in Public Good Games," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2011-01, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    7. Voraprapa Nakavachara, 2017. "The Economics of Altruism – The Old, the Rich, the Female," PIER Discussion Papers 62, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.
    8. Charles Van-Hein Sackey & Destenie Nock & Christine Cao & Daniel Armanios & Alex Davis, 2023. "Incorporating Elicited Preferences for Equality into Electricity System Planning Modeling," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(23), pages 1-21, November.
    9. Zahra Murad & Charitini Stavropoulou & Graham Cookson, 2019. "Incentives and gender in a multi-task setting: An experimental study with real-effort tasks," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(3), pages 1-18, March.
    10. repec:rdg:wpaper:em-dp2011-01 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Ruth Cadaoas Tacneng & Klarizze Anne Martin Puzon, 2021. "Gender priming in solidarity games: The Philippine context," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-24, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dufwenberg, Martin & Muren, Astri, 2006. "Generosity, anonymity, gender," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 42-49, September.
    2. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    3. Rigdon, Mary & Ishii, Keiko & Watabe, Motoki & Kitayama, Shinobu, 2009. "Minimal social cues in the dictator game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 358-367, June.
    4. Dufwenberg, Martin & Muren, Astri, 2002. "Discrimination by Gender and Social Distance," Research Papers in Economics 2002:2, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    5. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri, 2008. "What's in a name? Anonymity and social distance in dictator and ultimatum games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-35, October.
    6. Andreoni, James & Petrie, Ragan, 2008. "Beauty, gender and stereotypes: Evidence from laboratory experiments," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 73-93, February.
    7. Ben-Ner, Avner & Putterman, Louis & Kong, Fanmin & Magan, Dan, 2004. "Reciprocity in a two-part dictator game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 333-352, March.
    8. Azmat, Ghazala & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2014. "Gender and the labor market: What have we learned from field and lab experiments?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 32-40.
    9. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Cobo-Reyes, Ramón & Espinosa, María Paz & Jiménez, Natalia & Kovárík, Jaromír & Ponti, Giovanni, 2010. "Altruism and social integration," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 249-257, July.
    10. García-Gallego, Aurora & Georgantzís, Nikolaos & Jaramillo-Gutiérrez, Ainhoa, 2012. "Gender differences in ultimatum games: Despite rather than due to risk attitudes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 42-49.
    11. Alexander K. Koch & Hans‐Theo Normann, 2008. "Giving in Dictator Games: Regard for Others or Regard by Others?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(1), pages 223-231, July.
    12. James Andreoni & Lise Vesterlund, 2001. "Which is the Fair Sex? Gender Differences in Altruism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 293-312.
    13. Philip J. Grossman & Mana Komai & James E. Jensen, 2015. "Leadership and gender in groups: An experiment," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 48(1), pages 368-388, February.
    14. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Cobo-Reyes, Ramón & Espinosa, María Paz & Jiménez, Natalia & Kovárík, Jaromír & Ponti, Giovanni, 2010. "Altruism and social integration," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 249-257, July.
      • Brañas Garza, Pablo & Cobo Reyes, Ramón & Espinosa Alejos, María Paz & Jiménez, Natalia & Kovarik, Jaromir & Ponti, Giovanni, 2009. "Altruism and Social Integration," IKERLANAK 6414, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I.
      • Brañas Garza, Pablo & Cobo Reyes, Ramón & Espinosa Alejos, María Paz & Jiménez, Natalia & Kovarik, Jaromir & Ponti, Giovanni, 2009. "Altruism and Social Integration," DFAEII Working Papers 6414, University of the Basque Country - Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II.
    15. Bonein, Aurélie & Serra, Daniel, 2006. "L'influence de la connaissance du genre du partenaire dans les relations de confiance et de réciprocité: une étude expérimentale [Gender bias in trustworthiness]," MPRA Paper 2523, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Hasan, Hamid & Ejaz, Nauman, 2013. "Testing for Differences across Genders: A Replication of Ultimatum Game at International Islamic University, Islamabad," MPRA Paper 44923, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Kovarik, Jaromir & Jiménez, Natalia & Ponti, Giovanni & Espinosa Alejos, María Paz & Brañas Garza, Pablo & Cobo Reyes, Ramón, 2009. "Altruism and Social Integration," IKERLANAK 2009-35, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I.
    18. Deborah Kerley Keisner & Kent D. Messer & William D. Schulze & Homa Zarghamee, 2013. "Testing Social Preferences for an Economic “Bad”: An Artefactual Field Experiment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 115(1), pages 27-61, January.
    19. Becchetti, Leonardo & Degli Antoni, Giacomo & Ottone, Stefania & Solferino, Nazaria, 2013. "Allocation criteria under task performance: The gendered preference for protection," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 96-111.
    20. Schwieren, Christiane & Sutter, Matthias, 2008. "Trust in cooperation or ability? An experimental study on gender differences," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 494-497, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Altruism; gender; and experimental economics; JEL Codes: D64; J16; C92;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:14:y:2008:i:3:p:23-50. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RFEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.