Social preferences in childhood and adolescence ? A large-scale experiment

Arbeitspapier

Social preferences have been shown to be an important determinant of economic decision making for many adults. We present a large-scale experiment with 883 children and adolescents, aged eight to seventeen years. Participants make decisions in eight simple, one-shot allocation tasks, allowing us to study the distribution of social preference types across age and across gender. Our results show that when children and teenagers grow older, inequality aversion becomes a gradually less prominent motivating force of allocation decisions. At the same time, efficiency concerns increase in importance for boys, and maximin-preferences turn more important in shaping decisions of girls.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Papers in Economics and Statistics ; No. 2010-13

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual ; Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement ; Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
• Subject: Social preferences ; children ; age ; gender ; experiment ; Entscheidung ; Soziale Werte ; Soziale Wohlfahrtsfunktion ; Gerechtigkeit ; Wirtschaftliche Effizienz ; Test ; Kinder ; Jugendliche

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Sutter, Matthias ; Feri, Francesco ; Kocher, Martin G. ; Martinsson, Peter ; Nordblom, Katarina ; Rützler, Daniela
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University of Innsbruck, Department of Public Finance
• (where): Innsbruck
• (when): 2010

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/73533
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET