Lost Letter Measure of Variation in Altruistic Behaviour in 20 Neighbourhoods

Jo Holland, Antonio S Silva and Ruth Mace

PLOS ONE, 2012, vol. 7, issue 8, 1-4

Abstract: Altruistic behaviour varies across human populations and this variation is likely to be partly explained by variation in the ecological context of the populations. We hypothesise that area level socio-economic characteristics will determine the levels of altruism found in individuals living in an area and we use a lost letter experiment to measure altruism across 20 neighbourhoods with a wide range of income deprivation scores in London, UK. The results show a strong negative effect of neighbourhood income deprivation on altruistic behaviour, with letters dropped in the poorest neighbourhoods having 91% lower odds of being returned than letters dropped in the wealthiest neighbourhoods. We suggest that measures of altruism are strongly context dependant.

Date: 2012
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0043294

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0043294

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