Social Preferences in a Chinese Cultural Context

Saileshsingh Gunessee, Tom Lane and Shangjue Xie
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Tom Lane () and Saileshsingh Gunessee

Review of Behavioral Economics, 2021, vol. 8, issue 2, 125-145

Abstract: This paper investigates the effects of social distance and national bias on social preferences in China. In a field experiment featuring a diverse subject pool, we implement an incentivised dictator game, in which we vary the way decision-makers are primed to think about their social distance from the potential recipients of their generosity, as well as the nationality of these recipients. We find that decision-makers become substantially less pro-social when primed social distance increases. However, national bias is not found – there is no evidence subjects are willing to give more money to Chinese strangers than to unknown foreigners. The effects of social distance emerge more strongly at closer levels of distance for those who are rural, low-educated and poor, while they appear more strongly at greater levels of distance for their urban, high-educated and rich counterparts.

Keywords: Anarchy; Social preferences; social distance; network; nationalism; dictator game (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/105.00000135 (application/xml)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:now:jnlrbe:105.00000135

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Review of Behavioral Economics from now publishers
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lucy Wiseman ().