IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0036158.html

A Behavioral Test of Accepting Benefits that Cost Others: Associations with Conduct Problems and Callous-Unemotionality

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph T Sakai
  • Manish S Dalwani
  • Heather L Gelhorn
  • Susan K Mikulich-Gilbertson
  • Thomas J Crowley

Abstract

Background: Youth with conduct problems (CP) often make decisions which value self-interest over the interests of others. Self-benefiting behavior despite loss to others is especially common among youth with CP and callous-unemotional traits (CU). Such behavioral tendencies are generally measured using self- or observer-report. We are unaware of attempts to measure this tendency with a behavioral paradigm. Methods/Principal Findings: In our AlAn's (altruism-antisocial) game a computer program presents subjects with a series of offers in which they will receive money but a planned actual charity donation will be reduced; subjects decide to accept or reject each offer. We tested (1) whether adolescent patients with CP (n = 20) compared with adolescent controls (n = 19) differed on AlAn's game outcomes, (2) whether youths with CP and CU differed significantly from controls without CP or CU, and (3) whether AlAn's game outcomes correlated significantly with CP and separately, CU severity. Patients with CP and CU compared with controls without these problems took significantly more money for themselves and left significantly less money in the charity donation; AlAn's game outcomes were significantly correlated with CU, but not CP. Conclusions/Significance: In the AlAn's game adolescents with conduct problems and CU traits, compared with controls without CP/CU, are disposed to benefit themselves while costing others even in a novel situation, devoid of peer influences, where anonymity is assured, reciprocity or retribution are impossible, intoxication is absent and when the “other” to be harmed is considered beneficent. AlAn's game outcomes are associated with measures of CU. Results suggest that the AlAn's game provides an objective means of capturing information about CU traits. The AlAn's game, which was designed for future use in the MRI environment, may be used in studies attempting to identify the neural correlates of self-benefiting decision-making.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph T Sakai & Manish S Dalwani & Heather L Gelhorn & Susan K Mikulich-Gilbertson & Thomas J Crowley, 2012. "A Behavioral Test of Accepting Benefits that Cost Others: Associations with Conduct Problems and Callous-Unemotionality," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(4), pages 1-12, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0036158
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0036158
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0036158
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0036158&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0036158?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hoffman Elizabeth & McCabe Kevin & Shachat Keith & Smith Vernon, 1994. "Preferences, Property Rights, and Anonymity in Bargaining Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 346-380, November.
    2. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J., 1996. "Altruism in Anonymous Dictator Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 181-191, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Burks, Stephen V. & Carpenter, Jeffrey P. & Verhoogen, Eric, 2003. "Playing both roles in the trust game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 195-216, June.
    2. Emin Karagözoğlu & Elif Tosun, 2022. "Endogenous Game Choice and Giving Behavior in Distribution Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-32, November.
    3. Ben-Ner, Avner & Putterman, Louis & Kong, Fanmin & Magan, Dan, 2004. "Reciprocity in a two-part dictator game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 333-352, March.
    4. Wang, Xinghua & Navarro-Martinez, Daniel, 2023. "Increasing the external validity of social preference games by reducing measurement error," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 261-285.
    5. Pablo Brañas-Garza & Antonio Morales, 2005. "Moral Framing in Dictator Games by Short Sentences," ThE Papers 05/06, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    6. Thorsten Chmura & Christoph Engel & Markus Englerth, 2013. "Selfishness As a Potential Cause of Crime. A Prison Experiment," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics 2013_05, Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics.
    7. Cherry, Todd L., 2001. "Mental accounting and other-regarding behavior: Evidence from the lab," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 605-615, October.
    8. McCabe, Kevin A. & Rassenti, Stephen J. & Smith, Vernon L., 1998. "Reciprocity, Trust, and Payoff Privacy in Extensive Form Bargaining," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 24(1-2), pages 10-24, July.
    9. Erik O. Kimbrough & Alexander Vostroknutov, 2016. "Norms Make Preferences Social," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 608-638, June.
    10. Gao, Yuhong & Blayac, Thierry & Willinger, Marc, 2025. "Delegating moral dilemmas in autonomous vehicles evidence from an online experiment in China," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 721-752.
    11. Ruffle, Bradley J., 1998. "More Is Better, But Fair Is Fair: Tipping in Dictator and Ultimatum Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 247-265, May.
    12. Ben-Ner, Avner & Kramer, Amit & Levy, Ori, 2008. "Economic and hypothetical dictator game experiments: Incentive effects at the individual level," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1775-1784, October.
    13. Horky, Florian & Krell, Felix & Fidrmuc, Jarko, 2023. "Setting the stage: Fairness behavior in virtual reality dictator games," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    14. Isabel Thielmann & Daniel W. Heck & Benjamin E. Hilbig, 2016. "Anonymity and incentives: An investigation of techniques to reduce socially desirable responding in the Trust Game," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 11(5), pages 527-536, September.
    15. Mohlin, Erik & Johannesson, Magnus, 2008. "Communication: Content or relationship?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 409-419, March.
    16. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J., 1996. "The relative price of fairness: gender differences in a punishment game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 143-158, August.
    17. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Bucheli, Marisa & Espinosa, María Paz, 2020. "Altruism and information," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    18. Cormac Bryce & Thorsten Chmura & Rob Webb & Joel Stiebale & Carly Cheevers, 2019. "Internally Reporting Risk in Financial Services: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 156(2), pages 493-512, May.
    19. Fong, Christina M. & Luttmer, Erzo F. P., 2009. "Do Race and Fairness Matter in Generosity? Evidence from a Nationally Representative Charity Experiment," Working Paper Series rwp09-014, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0036158. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.