IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/econjl/v128y2018i611p1683-1699.html

Indirect Reciprocity and Prosocial Behaviour: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Redzo Mujcic
  • Andreas Leibbrandt

Abstract

Some of the greatest human achievements are difficult to imagine without prosociality. This article employs a natural field experiment to investigate indirect reciprocity in natural social interactions. We find strong evidence of indirect reciprocity in one†shot interactions among drivers. Subjects for whom other drivers stopped were more than twice as likely to extend a similar act to a third party. This result is robust to a number of factors including age, gender, social status, presence of onlookers, and the opportunity cost of time. We provide novel evidence for the power of indirect reciprocity to promote prosocial behaviour in the field.

Suggested Citation

  • Redzo Mujcic & Andreas Leibbrandt, 2018. "Indirect Reciprocity and Prosocial Behaviour: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(611), pages 1683-1699, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:econjl:v:128:y:2018:i:611:p:1683-1699
    DOI: 10.1111/ecoj.12474
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12474
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ecoj.12474?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wendelin Schnedler & Nina Lucia Stephan, 2020. "Revisiting a Remedy Against Chains of Unkindness," Schmalenbach Business Review, Springer;Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft, vol. 72(3), pages 347-364, July.
    2. Dolan, Paul & Krekel, Christian & Shreedhar, Ganga & Lee, Helen & Marshall, Claire & Smith, Allison, 2021. "Happy to Help: The Welfare Effects of a Nationwide Micro-Volunteering Programme," IZA Discussion Papers 14431, IZA Network @ LISER.
    3. Sabrina Jeworrek & Joschka Waibel, 2021. "Unethical employee behavior against coworkers following unkind management treatment: An experimental analysis," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(5), pages 1220-1234, July.
    4. Avalos-Trujillo, Luis, 2025. "Upstream reciprocity in the battle of good vs evil," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 371-395.
    5. Omar Al-Ubaydli & Faith Fatchen & John List, 2025. "Using Field Experiments to Understand the Impact of Institutions on Economic Growth," Springer Books, in: Claude Ménard & Mary M. Shirley (ed.), Handbook of New Institutional Economics, edition 0, chapter 42, pages 1117-1143, Springer.
    6. Husiatyński, Maciej, 2021. "Three essays on individual behavior and new technologies," Other publications TiSEM 1a7d7036-3d54-4a7b-a425-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Ann-Kathrin Crede, 2020. "Discussion of “Revisiting a Remedy Against Chains of Unkindness”," Schmalenbach Business Review, Springer;Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft, vol. 72(3), pages 365-368, July.
    8. Jeworrek, Sabrina & Leisen, Bernd Josef & Mertins, Vanessa, 2021. "Gift-exchange in society and the social integration of refugees–Evidence from a survey, a laboratory, and a field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 482-499.
    9. Sautua, Santiago I., 2022. "Donation requests following a pay rise," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    10. Anya Skatova & James Goulding, 2019. "Psychology of personal data donation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(11), pages 1-20, November.
    11. Lenard Strahringer & Sven Eric Pru{ss} & Kai Riemer, 2026. "Help Converts Newcomers, Not Veterans: Generalized Reciprocity and Platform Engagement on Stack Overflow," Papers 2604.03209, arXiv.org.
    12. Biljana Meiske, 2022. "Queen Bee Immigrant: The effects of status perceptions on immigration attitudes," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2022-12, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    13. Isamu Okada, 2020. "A Review of Theoretical Studies on Indirect Reciprocity," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-17, July.
    14. Yuan Yuan & Tracy Liu & Chenhao Tan & Qian Chen & Alex Pentland & Jie Tang, 2019. "Gift Contagion in Online Groups: Evidence From Virtual Red Packets," Papers 1906.09698, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    15. Jeworrek, Sabrina & Leisen, Bernd Josef & Mertins, Vanessa, 2020. "Gift-exchange in society and the social integration of refugees: Evidence from a field, a laboratory, and a survey experiment," IWH Discussion Papers 17/2019, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), revised 2020.
    16. Wendelin Schneder & Nina Lucia Stephan, 2018. "Revisiting a remedy against the chain of unkindness," Working Papers Dissertations 45, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    17. Shibly Shahrier & Koji Kotani & Tatsuyoshi Saijo, 2017. "Intergenerational sustainability dilemma and a potential solution: Future ahead and back mechanism," Working Papers SDES-2017-9, Kochi University of Technology, School of Economics and Management, revised Aug 2017.
    18. Chuan, Amanda & Zhang, Hanzhe, 2025. "Pay it forward: Theory and experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 294-314.
    19. Wendelin Schnedler & Nina Lucia Stephan, 2019. "When letter writing increases kindness: Regulating emotions or activating pro-social thinking?," Working Papers Dissertations 29, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    20. Krekel, Christian & Shreedhar, Ganga & Lee, Helen & Marshall, Claire & Boler, Alison & Smith, Allison & Dolan, Paul, 2024. "Happy to help: welfare effects of a nationwide volunteering programme," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 126209, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    21. Stijn Bruers & Erwin Ooghe & Erik Schokkaert, 2025. "Small Quasi-Cash Rewards: A Field Experiment on Voluntary Plasma Donations," CESifo Working Paper Series 11899, CESifo.
    22. Jin Di Zheng & Arthur Schram & Tianle Song, 2024. "Correction to: Social status and prosocial behavior," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 27(2), pages 489-489, April.

    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:wly:econjl:v:128:y:2018:i:611:p:1683-1699. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.html .

    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.