 The power of asking: How communication affects selfishness, empathy, and altruismJames Andreoni and Justin M. Rao Journal of Public Economics, 2011, vol. 95, issue 7, 513-520 Abstract: To understand the “pure” incentives of altruism, economic laboratory research on humans almost always forbids communication between subjects. In reality, however, altruism usually requires interaction between givers and receivers, which clearly must influence choices. Charities, for example, speak of the “power of asking.” Indeed, evolutionary theories of altruism are built on human sociality. We experimentally examine communication in which one subject allocates $10 between herself and a receiver, and systematically altered who in the pair could speak. We found that any time the recipient spoke, giving increased — asking is powerful. But when only allocators could speak, choices were significantly more selfish than any other condition. When empathy was heightened by putting allocators “in the receiver's shoes,” giving appeared as if recipients had been able to ask, even when they were silent. We conclude that communication dramatically influences altruistic behavior, and appears to largely work by heightening empathy. Keywords: Altruism; Empathy; Inequality; Communication (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:95:y:2011:i:7:p:513-520 DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2010.12.008 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier |
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