Higher socioeconomic status does not predict decreased prosocial behavior in a field experiment

James Andreoni; Nikos Nikiforakis; Jan Stoop

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-24519-5

Higher socioeconomic status does not predict decreased prosocial behavior in a field experiment

James Andreoni, Nikos Nikiforakis^*, Jan Stoop

^*Corresponding author for this work

Applied Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

54 Citations (Scopus)

48 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Does higher socioeconomic status predict decreased prosocial behavior? Methodological issues such as the reliance of survey studies on self-reported measures of prosociality, the insufficient control of relative incentives in experiments, and the use of non-random samples, have prevented researchers from ruling out that there is a negative association between socioeconomic status (SES) and prosociality. Here, we present results from a field experiment on the willingness of unaware individuals of different SES to undertake an effortful prosocial task—returning a misdelivered letter. Specifically, using the rental or sale value of homes as indicators of SES, we randomly selected households of high and low SES and misdelivered envelopes to them. Despite controlling for numerous covariates and performing a series of ancillary tests, we fail to find any evidence that higher SES predicts decreased prosocial behavior. Instead, we find that misdelivered letters are substantially more likely to be returned from high rather than low SES households.

Original language	English
Article number	4266
Pages (from-to)	4266
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	12
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24519-5
Publication status	Published - 12 Jul 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors thank Olivier Bochet, Zachary Breig, Alain Cohn, Aurélie Dariel, Robert Dur, John Ham, PJ Henry, Hans van Kippersluis, Steven Levitt, John List, Drazen Prelec, Vitalie Spinu, Darjusch Tafreschi, Joost Verlaan, Pepijn Pest, and seminar participants at the University of Athens, the Berlin Social Science Center, the University of Chicago, Kiel University, the University of Nottingham, Tilburg University, and Wageningen University. We are grateful to ERIM (Vidi grant VI.Vidi.195.061), the National Science Foundation (grants: SES-1427355, SES-1658952), the Science of Philanthropy Initiative, the John Templeton Foundation, and Tamkeen under the NYU Abu Dhabi Research Institute (Award CG005) for financial support.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).

Access to Document

10.1038/s41467-021-24519-5

s41467-021-24519-5Final published version, 504 KB

Cite this

@article{99bec5ada6094486a485e110b09ff8ae,

title = "Higher socioeconomic status does not predict decreased prosocial behavior in a field experiment",

abstract = "Does higher socioeconomic status predict decreased prosocial behavior? Methodological issues such as the reliance of survey studies on self-reported measures of prosociality, the insufficient control of relative incentives in experiments, and the use of non-random samples, have prevented researchers from ruling out that there is a negative association between socioeconomic status (SES) and prosociality. Here, we present results from a field experiment on the willingness of unaware individuals of different SES to undertake an effortful prosocial task—returning a misdelivered letter. Specifically, using the rental or sale value of homes as indicators of SES, we randomly selected households of high and low SES and misdelivered envelopes to them. Despite controlling for numerous covariates and performing a series of ancillary tests, we fail to find any evidence that higher SES predicts decreased prosocial behavior. Instead, we find that misdelivered letters are substantially more likely to be returned from high rather than low SES households.",

author = "James Andreoni and Nikos Nikiforakis and Jan Stoop",

note = "Funding Information: The authors thank Olivier Bochet, Zachary Breig, Alain Cohn, Aur{\'e}lie Dariel, Robert Dur, John Ham, PJ Henry, Hans van Kippersluis, Steven Levitt, John List, Drazen Prelec, Vitalie Spinu, Darjusch Tafreschi, Joost Verlaan, Pepijn Pest, and seminar participants at the University of Athens, the Berlin Social Science Center, the University of Chicago, Kiel University, the University of Nottingham, Tilburg University, and Wageningen University. We are grateful to ERIM (Vidi grant VI.Vidi.195.061), the National Science Foundation (grants: SES-1427355, SES-1658952), the Science of Philanthropy Initiative, the John Templeton Foundation, and Tamkeen under the NYU Abu Dhabi Research Institute (Award CG005) for financial support. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021, The Author(s).",

year = "2021",

month = jul,

day = "12",

doi = "10.1038/s41467-021-24519-5",

language = "English",

volume = "12",

pages = "4266",

journal = "Nature Communications",

issn = "2041-1723",

publisher = "Nature Research",

number = "1",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Higher socioeconomic status does not predict decreased prosocial behavior in a field experiment

AU - Andreoni, James

AU - Nikiforakis, Nikos

AU - Stoop, Jan

N1 - Funding Information: The authors thank Olivier Bochet, Zachary Breig, Alain Cohn, Aurélie Dariel, Robert Dur, John Ham, PJ Henry, Hans van Kippersluis, Steven Levitt, John List, Drazen Prelec, Vitalie Spinu, Darjusch Tafreschi, Joost Verlaan, Pepijn Pest, and seminar participants at the University of Athens, the Berlin Social Science Center, the University of Chicago, Kiel University, the University of Nottingham, Tilburg University, and Wageningen University. We are grateful to ERIM (Vidi grant VI.Vidi.195.061), the National Science Foundation (grants: SES-1427355, SES-1658952), the Science of Philanthropy Initiative, the John Templeton Foundation, and Tamkeen under the NYU Abu Dhabi Research Institute (Award CG005) for financial support. Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s).

PY - 2021/7/12

Y1 - 2021/7/12

N2 - Does higher socioeconomic status predict decreased prosocial behavior? Methodological issues such as the reliance of survey studies on self-reported measures of prosociality, the insufficient control of relative incentives in experiments, and the use of non-random samples, have prevented researchers from ruling out that there is a negative association between socioeconomic status (SES) and prosociality. Here, we present results from a field experiment on the willingness of unaware individuals of different SES to undertake an effortful prosocial task—returning a misdelivered letter. Specifically, using the rental or sale value of homes as indicators of SES, we randomly selected households of high and low SES and misdelivered envelopes to them. Despite controlling for numerous covariates and performing a series of ancillary tests, we fail to find any evidence that higher SES predicts decreased prosocial behavior. Instead, we find that misdelivered letters are substantially more likely to be returned from high rather than low SES households.

AB - Does higher socioeconomic status predict decreased prosocial behavior? Methodological issues such as the reliance of survey studies on self-reported measures of prosociality, the insufficient control of relative incentives in experiments, and the use of non-random samples, have prevented researchers from ruling out that there is a negative association between socioeconomic status (SES) and prosociality. Here, we present results from a field experiment on the willingness of unaware individuals of different SES to undertake an effortful prosocial task—returning a misdelivered letter. Specifically, using the rental or sale value of homes as indicators of SES, we randomly selected households of high and low SES and misdelivered envelopes to them. Despite controlling for numerous covariates and performing a series of ancillary tests, we fail to find any evidence that higher SES predicts decreased prosocial behavior. Instead, we find that misdelivered letters are substantially more likely to be returned from high rather than low SES households.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85104117545&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1038/s41467-021-24519-5

DO - 10.1038/s41467-021-24519-5

M3 - Article

C2 - 34253718

AN - SCOPUS:85104117545

SN - 2041-1723

VL - 12

SP - 4266

JO - Nature Communications

JF - Nature Communications

IS - 1

M1 - 4266

ER -

Higher socioeconomic status does not predict decreased prosocial behavior in a field experiment

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint