Competitive altruism and prosocial behavior

Abstract

This study examined the effect of reputation in prosocial behavior in the context of donating to charity. Two kinds of reward conditions were set up. In the potential reward condition, participants were explained that the rewards they earn by their completing a simple task would be sent to starving African children, and in the material reward condition, participants were entitled to keep their rewards. It was predicted that the degree of performance would be greater in the individual situation, where individual contribution was evident, rather than the group situation in which each individual's contribution was not clear, and participants were likely to be concerned about how they would be seen by an observer (i.e., experimenter). The results confirmed this expectation, as participants performed better in the individual situation than the group in both the potential reward and the material reward conditions, although the difference between conditions was not significant. These findings were discussed from the view point of competitive altruism (Van Vugt, Roberts & Hardy, 2007). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)