The broken chain: evidence against emotionally driven upstream indirect reciprocity

Artikel

Psychologists claim that being treated kindly puts individuals in a positive emotional state: they then treat an unrelated third party more kindly. Numerous experiments document that subjects indeed ‘pay forward’ specific behavior. For example, they are less generous after having experienced stinginess. This, however, is not necessarily driven by emotions. Subjects may also imitate what they regard as socially adequate behavior. Here, I present an experiment in which imitation is not possible at the next opportunity to act with a stranger: after being given either a fun or an annoying job, subjects have to decide whether to be generous or not. I find that although subjects who are given the annoying job report more negative emotions than those with the fun job, they do not treat an unrelated third person more unkindly in terms of passing on less money.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Journal: Games and Economic Behavior ; ISSN: 0899-8256 ; Volume: 136 ; Year: 2022 ; Pages: 542-558 ; Amsterdam: Elsevier

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making‡ ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual
• Subject: indirect upstream reciprocity ; paying-it-forward ; chain of unkindness ; simple anger ; emotional regulation ; imitation

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Schnedler, Wendelin
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Elsevier ; ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics
• (where): Amsterdam
• (when): 2022

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.1016/j.geb.2022.10.008
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/266340
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET