IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp5648.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Altruism in Society: Evidence from a Natural Experiment Involving Commuters

Author

Listed:
  • Mujcic, Redzo

    (University of Warwick)

  • Frijters, Paul

    (London School of Economics)

Abstract

We study social preferences in the form of altruism using data on 959 interactions between random commuters at selected traffic intersections in the city of Brisbane, Australia. By observing real decisions of individual commuters on whether to stop (give way) for others, we find evidence of (i) gender discrimination by both men and women, with women discriminating relatively more against the same sex than men, and men discriminating in favour of the opposite sex more than women; (ii) status-seeking and envy, with individuals who drive a more luxury motor vehicle having a 0.18 lower probability of receiving a kind treatment from others of low status, however this result improves when the decision maker is also of high status; (iii) strong peer effects, with those commuters accompanied by other passengers being 25 percent more likely to sacrifice for others; and (iv) an age effect, with mature-aged people eliciting a higher degree of altruism.

Suggested Citation

  • Mujcic, Redzo & Frijters, Paul, 2011. "Altruism in Society: Evidence from a Natural Experiment Involving Commuters," IZA Discussion Papers 5648, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5648
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp5648.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Johansson-Stenman, Olof & Martinsson, Peter, 2006. "Honestly, why are you driving a BMW?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 129-146, June.
    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. repec:cup:judgdm:v:8:y:2013:i:1:p:7-15 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Reyniers, Diane & Bhalla, Richa, 2013. "Reluctant altruism and peer pressure in charitable giving," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 48779, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Diane Reyniers & Richa Bhalla, 2013. "Reluctant altruism and peer pressure in charitable giving," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 8(1), pages 7-15, January.

    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. Heinicke, Franziska & Rosenkranz, Stephanie & Weitzel, Utz, 2019. "The effect of pledges on the distribution of lying behavior: An online experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 136-151.
    2. Gyrd-Hansen, Dorte & Kjær, Trine & Nielsen, Jytte Seested, 2016. "The value of mortality risk reductions. Pure altruism - a confounder?," DaCHE discussion papers 2016:5, University of Southern Denmark, Dache - Danish Centre for Health Economics.
    3. Lenka Mynaříková & Vít Pošta, 2023. "The Effect of Consumer Confidence and Subjective Well-being on Consumers’ Spending Behavior," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 429-453, February.
    4. Omer Gokcekus & Yui Suzuki, 2014. "Is there a Corruption-effect on Conspicuous Consumption?," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 8(3), pages 215-235, August.
    5. Thomas Aronsson & Sugata Ghosh & Ronald Wendner, 2023. "Positional preferences and efficiency in a dynamic economy," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 61(2), pages 311-337, August.
    6. Alpizar, Francisco & Carlsson, Fredrik & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2008. "Anonymity, reciprocity, and conformity: Evidence from voluntary contributions to a national park in Costa Rica," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1047-1060, June.
    7. Interis, Matthew G. & Haab, Timothy C., 2014. "Overheating Willingness to Pay: Who Gets Warm Glow and What It Means for Valuation," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(2), pages 266-278, August.
    8. Miklós Antal & Ardjan Gazheli & Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, 2012. "Behavioural Foundations of Sustainability Transitions. WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 3," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 46424, January.
    9. Andriosopoulos, Kostas & Bigerna, Simona & Bollino, Carlo Andrea & Micheli, Silvia, 2018. "The impact of age on Italian consumers' attitude toward alternative fuel vehicles," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 299-308.
    10. Crudeli, Luca & Mancinelli, Susanna & Mazzanti, Massimiliano & Pitoro, Raul, 2022. "Beyond individualistic behaviour: Social norms and innovation adoption in rural Mozambique," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    11. Ayyagari, Meghana & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Maksimovic, Vojislav, 2010. "Are innovating firms victims or perpetrators ? tax evasion, bribe payments, and the role of external finance in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5389, The World Bank.
    12. Thomas Aronsson & Olof Johansson‐Stenman & Tomas Sjögren, 2019. "Social Comparisons and Optimal Taxation in a Small Open Economy," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(4), pages 1500-1532, October.
    13. Carolina Castilla, 2012. "Subjective well-being and reference-dependence: Insights from Mexico," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(2), pages 219-238, June.
    14. Wendner, Ronald, 2008. "Consumption Externalities and Pigouvian Ranking -- A Generalized Cobb-Douglas Example," MPRA Paper 8540, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Mujcic, Redzo & Frijters, Paul, 2015. "Conspicuous consumption, conspicuous health, and optimal taxation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 59-70.
    16. Jean Tirole & Roland Bénabou, 2006. "Incentives and Prosocial Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1652-1678, December.
    17. Wendner, Ronald, 2010. "Growth And Keeping Up With The Joneses," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(S2), pages 176-199, November.
    18. Kangsik Choi, 2014. "A Note On Pricing Of Product Quality For Status Concerns," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(4), pages 333-345, October.
    19. Menkhoff, Lukas & Nikiforow, Marina, 2009. "Professionals' endorsement of behavioral finance: Does it impact their perception of markets and themselves?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 318-329, August.
    20. Laura Czifra & Aranka Mészáros, 2013. "A stafétabot átadása: avagy az újabb generációk megjelenése a munkahelyeken," Eszak-magyarorszagi Strategiai Fuzetek, Faculty of Economics, University of Miskolc, vol. 10(2), pages 116-122.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    altruism; social interaction; social discrimination; status; peer effects; commuters;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp5648. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    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.