Competition for power and altruism
Abstract
The paper analyzes the trade-off between power and altruism by using an experimental framework which involved a group of experimental agents, undergraduate students of the University of Siena. The results show that the introduction into the experimental structure of a tournament for the power appreciably altered the behaviour of agents. More specifically the degree of altruism, measured by the dictator offers, significantly decreased when the agents were able to trade altruism for power. The results were more clear-cut and robust in the case of the dictator game, but also in the case of the ultimatum game the introduction of the tournament for power altered the behavior of subjects. A significant gender effect emergedDownload Info
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Paper provided by Department of Economics, University of Siena in its series Department of Economics University of Siena with number 562.Length:
Date of creation: Jul 2009
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:usi:wpaper:562
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Related research
Keywords: Altruism; Dictator game; Ultimatum game; Hierarchy;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
- D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2009-09-26 (All new papers)
- NEP-CBE-2009-09-26 (Cognitive & Behavioural Economics)
- NEP-EXP-2009-09-26 (Experimental Economics)
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Kosta Josifidis & Alpar Lošonc, 2012. "Value and Power in Economics," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 59(4), pages 501-519, September.
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