IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/not/notcdx/2018-13.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Altruism, Fast and Slow? Evidence from a Meta-Analysis and a New Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Hanna Fromell

    (Department of Economics, Econometrics, and Finance, University of Groningen)

  • Daniele Nosenzo

    (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) and School of Economics, University of Nottingham)

  • Trudy Owens

    (University of Nottingham)

Abstract

Can we use the lens of dual-system theories to explain altruistic behavior? In recent years this question has attracted the interest of both economists and psychologists. We contribute to this emerging literature, by reporting both the results of a meta-study of the literature and a new experiment. Our meta-study is based on 19 experimental studies conducted with nearly 11,000 subjects. We show that the overall effect of manipulating cognitive resources to promote the "intuitive" system at the expense of the 'deliberative' system is very close to zero. We argue that this null result could be because the interventions used in the existing literature to manipulate cognitive resources are vulnerable to the presence of heterogeneity in the direction of the effect of the intervention. We design a new experiment that is not vulnerable to this potential heterogeneity. We still fail to find support for the notion that altruistic choices are the result of a conflict between the intuitive and deliberative systems. Taken together, the findings of our meta-study and the new experiment offer little support for dual-system theories of altruistic behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Hanna Fromell & Daniele Nosenzo & Trudy Owens, 2018. "Altruism, Fast and Slow? Evidence from a Meta-Analysis and a New Experiment," Discussion Papers 2018-13, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    • Handle: RePEc:not:notcdx:2018-13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cedex/documents/papers/cedex-discussion-paper-2018-13.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Merkel, Anna & Lohse, Johannes, 2016. "Is fairness intuitive? An experiment accounting for the role of subjective utility differences under time pressure," Working Papers 0627, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    2. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    3. Amanda Kvarven & Eirik Strømland & Conny Wollbrant & David Andersson & Magnus Johannesson & Gustav Tinghög & Daniel Västfjäll & Kristian Ove R. Myrseth, 2020. "The intuitive cooperation hypothesis revisited: a meta-analytic examination of effect size and between-study heterogeneity," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 6(1), pages 26-42, June.
    4. de Haan, Thomas & van Veldhuizen, Roel, 2015. "Willpower depletion and framing effects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 47-61.
    5. Gustav Tinghög & David Andersson & Caroline Bonn & Magnus Johannesson & Michael Kirchler & Lina Koppel & Daniel Västfjäll, 2016. "Intuition and Moral Decision-Making – The Effect of Time Pressure and Cognitive Load on Moral Judgment and Altruistic Behavior," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-19, October.
    6. Fadong Chen & Ian Krajbich, 2018. "Biased sequential sampling underlies the effects of time pressure and delay in social decision making," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 9(1), pages 1-10, December.
    7. Michael A. Kuhn & Peter Kuhn & Marie Claire Villeval, 2014. "Self Control and Intertemporal Choice: Evidence from Glucose and Depletion Interventions," Post-Print halshs-00954539, HAL.
    8. Kessler, Judd B. & Meier, Stephan, 2014. "Learning from (failed) replications: Cognitive load manipulations and charitable giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 10-13.
    9. Friehe, Tim & Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah, 2017. "Self-control and crime revisited: Disentangling the effect of self-control on risk taking and antisocial behavior," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 23-32.
    10. Zachary Grossman & Joël J. Van der Weele, 2017. "Dual-Process Reasoning in Charitable Giving: Learning from Non-Results," Games, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-13, August.
    11. Andersen, Steffen & Gneezy, Uri & Kajackaite, Agne & Marx, Julie, 2018. "Allowing for reflection time does not change behavior in dictator and cheating games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 24-33.
    12. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    13. Gilles Grolleau & Angela Sutan & Sana El Harbi & Marwa Jedidi, 2018. "Do We Need More Time To Give Less? Experimental Evidence From Tunisia," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 400-409, October.
    14. Schulz, Jonathan F. & Fischbacher, Urs & Thöni, Christian & Utikal, Verena, 2014. "Affect and fairness: Dictator games under cognitive load," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 77-87.
    15. Deck, Cary & Jahedi, Salar, 2015. "The effect of cognitive load on economic decision making: A survey and new experiments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 97-119.
    16. Valerio Capraro & Brice Corgnet & Antonio M. Espin & Roberto Hernán-González, 2017. "Deliberation favours social efficiency by making people disregard their relative shares : evidence from USA and India," Post-Print hal-02311978, HAL.
    17. Tetsuo Yamamori & Kazuhiko Kato & Toshiji Kawagoe & Akihiko Matsui, 2008. "Voice matters in a dictator game," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 11(4), pages 336-343, December.
    18. Strømland, Eirik & Torsvik, Gaute, 2019. "Intuitive Prosociality: Heterogeneous Treatment Effects or False Positive?," OSF Preprints hrx2y, Center for Open Science.
    19. 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.
    20. Karen Evelyn Hauge & Kjell Arne Brekke & Lars-Olof Johansson & Olof Johansson-Stenman & Henrik Svedsäter, 2016. "Keeping others in our mind or in our heart? Distribution games under cognitive load," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(3), pages 562-576, September.
    21. Krawczyk, Michał & Sylwestrzak, Marta, 2018. "Exploring the role of deliberation time in non-selfish behavior: The double response method," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 121-134.
    22. Burger, Nicholas & Charness, Gary & Lynham, John, 2011. "Field and online experiments on self-control," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 77(3), pages 393-404, March.
    23. Spears Dean, 2011. "Economic Decision-Making in Poverty Depletes Behavioral Control," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-44, December.
    24. Anna, Petrenko, 2016. "Мaркування готової продукції як складова частина інформаційного забезпечення маркетингової діяльності підприємств овочепродуктового підкомплексу," Agricultural and Resource Economics: International Scientific E-Journal, Agricultural and Resource Economics: International Scientific E-Journal, vol. 2(1), March.
    25. 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.
    26. Tina Strombach & Zsofia Margittai & Barbara Gorczyca & Tobias Kalenscher, 2016. "Gender-Specific Effects of Cognitive Load on Social Discounting," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-15, October.
    27. Small, Deborah A. & Loewenstein, George & Slovic, Paul, 2007. "Sympathy and callousness: The impact of deliberative thought on donations to identifiable and statistical victims," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 143-153, March.
    28. Anna Louisa Merkel & Johannes Lohse, 2019. "Is fairness intuitive? An experiment accounting for subjective utility differences under time pressure," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(1), pages 24-50, March.
    29. Daniel J. Benjamin & Sebastian A. Brown & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2013. "Who Is ‘Behavioral’? Cognitive Ability And Anomalous Preferences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(6), pages 1231-1255, December.
    30. Janssen, Loes & Fennis, Bob M. & Pruyn, Ad Th.H. & Vohs, Kathleen D., 2008. "The path of least resistance: Regulatory resource depletion and the effectiveness of social influence techniques," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 61(10), pages 1041-1045, October.
    31. Valerio Capraro & Brice Corgnet & Antonio M. Espin & Roberto Hernan-Gonzalez, 2016. "Deliberation favors social efficiency by helping people disregard their relative shares: Evidence from US and India," Discussion Papers 2016-06, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    32. Kahneman, Daniel, 2002. "Maps of Bounded Rationality," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2002-4, Nobel Prize Committee.
    33. Jarke, Johannes & Lohse, Johannes, 2016. "I'm in a hurry, I don't want to know! The effects of time pressure and transparency on self-serving behavior," WiSo-HH Working Paper Series 32, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, WISO Research Laboratory.
    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:17:y:2022:i:1:p:1-13 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Crosetto, Paolo & Güth, Werner, 2021. "What are you calling intuitive? Subject heterogeneity as a driver of response times in an impunity game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    3. Valerio Capraro & Andrea Vanzo & Antonio Cabrales, 2022. "Playing with words: Do people exploit loaded language to affect others’ decisions for their own benefit?," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 17(1), pages 50-69, January.
    4. Gioia Francesca, 2024. "Incentive-Induced Social Tie and Subsequent Altruism and Cooperation," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 24(3), pages 751-797.
    5. Umer, Hamza & Kurosaki, Takashi & Iwasaki, Ichiro, 2022. "Unearned Endowment and Charity Recipient Lead to Higher Donations: A Meta-Analysis of the Dictator Game Lab Experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    6. Amanda Kvarven & Eirik Strømland & Conny Wollbrant & David Andersson & Magnus Johannesson & Gustav Tinghög & Daniel Västfjäll & Kristian Ove R. Myrseth, 2020. "The intuitive cooperation hypothesis revisited: a meta-analytic examination of effect size and between-study heterogeneity," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 6(1), pages 26-42, June.
    7. Strømland, Eirik & Torsvik, Gaute, 2019. "Intuitive Prosociality: Heterogeneous Treatment Effects or False Positive?," OSF Preprints hrx2y, Center for Open Science.
    8. repec:cup:judgdm:v:17:y:2022:i:1:p:50-69 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Manja Gärtner & David Andersson & Daniel Västfjäll & Gustav Tinghög, 2022. "Affect and prosocial behavior: The role of decision mode and individual processing style," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 17(1), pages 1-13, January.
    10. Bilancini, Ennio & Boncinelli, Leonardo & Guarnieri, Pietro & Spadoni, Lorenzo, 2023. "Delaying and motivating decisions in the (Bully) dictator game," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    11. Arcadio de Jesús Cardona-Isaza & Remedios González Barrón & Inmaculada Montoya-Castilla, 2023. "Empathy and Prosocial Behavior in Adolescent Offenders: The Mediating Role of Rational Decisions," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, October.
    12. Hagit Sabato & Tehila Kogut, 2021. "Happy to help—if it’s not too sad: The effect of mood on helping identifiable and unidentifiable victims," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-15, June.
    13. Castillo, Marco & Dickinson, David L., 2022. "Sleep restriction increases coordination failure," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 358-370.
    14. Emily M Thornton & Lara B Aknin, 2020. "Assessing the validity of the Self versus other interest implicit association test," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(6), pages 1-17, June.
    15. Marc Wyszynski & Adele Diederich & Ilana Ritov, 2020. "Gamble for the needy! Does identifiability enhances donation?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(6), pages 1-19, June.

    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. Bilancini, Ennio & Boncinelli, Leonardo & Guarnieri, Pietro & Spadoni, Lorenzo, 2023. "Delaying and motivating decisions in the (Bully) dictator game," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    2. Deck, Cary & Jahedi, Salar & Sheremeta, Roman, 2021. "On the consistency of cognitive load," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    3. Gerhardt, Holger & Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah & Willrodt, Jana, 2017. "Does self-control depletion affect risk attitudes?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 463-487.
    4. Anja Achtziger & Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Alexander Ritschel, 2020. "Cognitive load in economic decisions," ECON - Working Papers 354, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    5. Hanna Fromell & Daniele Nosenzo & Trudy Owens, 2014. "Tradeoffs between Self-interest and Other-Regarding Preferences Cause Willpower Depletion," Discussion Papers 2014-14, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    6. Lucks, Konstantin, 2016. "The Impact of Self-Control on Investment Decisions," MPRA Paper 73099, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Zachary Grossman & Joël J. Van der Weele, 2017. "Dual-Process Reasoning in Charitable Giving: Learning from Non-Results," Games, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-13, August.
    8. Fadong Chen & Urs Fischbacher, 2020. "Cognitive processes underlying distributional preferences: a response time study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(2), pages 421-446, June.
    9. Eric Bonsang & Eve Caroli, 2021. "Cognitive Load and Occupational Injuries," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(2), pages 219-242, April.
    10. Grossman, Zachary & van der Weele, Joël & Andrijevik, Ana, 2014. "A Test of Dual-Process Reasoning in Charitable Giving," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt4tm617f7, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    11. Alós-Ferrer, Carlos & Garagnani, Michele, 2020. "The cognitive foundations of cooperation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 71-85.
    12. Sean Duffy & J. J. Naddeo & David Owens & John Smith, 2024. "Cognitive Load and Mixed Strategies: On Brains and Minimax," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 26(03), pages 1-34, September.
    13. Kuhn, Michael A. & Kuhn, Peter & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2017. "Decision-environment effects on intertemporal financial choices: How relevant are resource-depletion models?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 72-89.
    14. Goeschl, Timo & Lohse, Johannes, 2018. "Cooperation in public good games. Calculated or confused?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 185-203.
    15. Allred, Sarah & Duffy, Sean & Smith, John, 2016. "Cognitive load and strategic sophistication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 162-178.
    16. Buckert, Magdalena & Oechssler, Jörg & Schwieren, Christiane, 2017. "Imitation under stress," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 252-266.
    17. Gächter, Simon & Starmer, Chris & Tufano, Fabio, 2022. "Measuring "Group Cohesion" to Reveal the Power of Social Relationships in Team Production," IZA Discussion Papers 15512, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Traub, Stefan & Schwaninger, Manuel & Paetzel, Fabian & Neuhofer, Sabine, 2023. "Evidence on need-sensitive giving behavior: An experimental approach to the acknowledgment of needs," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    19. Andreas C Drichoutis & Rodolfo M Nayga, 2020. "Economic Rationality under Cognitive Load," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(632), pages 2382-2409.
    20. Dimant, Eugen, 2015. "On Peer Effects: Behavioral Contagion of (Un)Ethical Behavior and the Role of Social Identity," MPRA Paper 68732, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    altruism; giving; dictator game; dual-system model; intuition; deliberation; selfcontrol; willpower; depletion; Stroop task;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

    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:not:notcdx:2018-13. 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: Jose V Guinot Saporta (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdnotuk.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.