Doctoral Dissertation Research: Accounting for Altruistic Behavior: An Experimental Analysis

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

SES-1003820 Charles Camic Kieran Bezila Northwestern University Comprehending the social roots of altruistic behavior is important both to accurately study the phenomenon and to understand the circumstances in which altruistic behavior flourishes, or is suppressed. This research posits that the expression of altruistic behavior is a rational individual decision that is also a function of particular sets of social circumstances - those in which individuals feel they are making a strategic, personal investment in a communal ethic of mutual cooperation, which has the likelihood of benefiting themselves and others in the future. This theory is tested experimentally via a "public goods" game, an economic "social dilemma" scenario in which group members receive varying incentives for cooperation and competition and must decide how to behave and how to coordinate their behavior. An innovative "career" design is employed, to vary the composition of the groups in standardized ways that players must anticipate and respond to. The theory predicts that the ability of individuals to help regulate and regularize group behavior, through precedent and modeling behaviors and the effectiveness of sanctioning behavior, will determine the level of cooperation and altruism displayed. Furthermore, anticipation of particular future social configurations, and the likelihood of cooperation or competition within these groups, will also affect the level of cooperation and altruism displayed. Broader Impacts Research findings will make a valuable empirical and theoretical contribution to disciplinary understandings of altruism, cooperation and group behavior, as well as providing a refined theoretical grounding for future empirical examinations of altruistic behavior and cooperation and competition within groups. This research also has direct implications for real-world problems of coordination, cooperation and social order. Modeling circumstances in which individuals are willing to defer immediate personal gains in favor of prospective collective gains has applicability to a wide variety of domains, and concrete social policy issues such as volunteering, charitable giving, public provisioning of welfare and social security systems, and organ donation rates.