Are religious people more generous than non-religious people? If so, are they more generous in general or mainly to members of their religious ingroup (i.e., parochially generous)? Also, do levels of parochial generosity differ between Christians, Muslims, and atheists? This paper examined these questions by using a novel design of the Dictator Game, where participants in multiple rounds decided how much money to keep for themselves and give to three other players, of whom some information is revealed. Three studies (N = 1,719) with a Swedish sample, an American sample, and a sample from Egypt and Lebanon were conducted. We found that religious people were more generous compared to non-religious people when information about players’ religious affiliation was available, but not when it was not available. The results suggest that if religious people are more generous, this mainly occurs when religious information is salient. We also found evidence of parochial generosity among Christians, Muslims, and atheists as all three groups gave more to their religious ingroup than to both of their outgroups. However, Muslims seemed to differ from Christians and atheists by giving more to their ingroup than the other two groups gave to their respective ingroups in the USA and possibly in Sweden.

Long-term thinking and voluntary resource sharing are two distinctive traits ofhuman nature. Across three experiments (N=1,082), I propose a causal connection:Sometimes people are generous because they think about thefuture. Participants were randomly assigned to either focus on the present orthe future and then made specific decisions in hypothetical scenarios. In Study1 (N=200), future-focused participants shared more money in a public dictatorgame than present-focused participants (+39%), and they were willing to donatemore money to charity (+61%). Study 2 (N=410) replicated the positive effect offuture-focus on dictator giving when the choice was framed as public (+36%), butfound no such effect when the choice was framed as private. That is, focusing onthe future made participants more generous only when others would know theiridentity. Study 3 was a high-powered and pre-registered replication of Study 1(N=472), including a few extensions. Once again, future-focused participantsgave more money to charity in a public donation scenario (+40%), and they weremore likely to volunteer for the same charity (+17%). As predicted, the effectwas mediated by reputational concern, indicating that future-orientation canmake people more generous because it also makes them more attuned to the socialconsequences of their choices. Taken together, the results suggest that focusingon the future promotes reputation-based generosity. Bystimulating voluntary resource sharing, a central function of human foresightmight be to support cooperation in groups and society.

Existing evidence from laboratory experiments finds that a match is likely to increase charitable donations by more than a theoretically equivalent rebate. A number of explanations have been proposed for this in the literature. One idea, which has never been tested, is that people consider a match to be more generous, because unlike the rebate, there is no reward for making a donation in the match setting. We design a survey to determine whether people do consider matches more generous than rebates, and probe the reasons subjects give for their answers. We find that a significant number of people do consider rebates less generous because of the reward associated with donations in such a setting.

We conducted an experimental study on social preferences using dictator games similar to Fehr et al. (2008). Our results show that social preferences differ between subjects who receive low-stakes monetary rewards for their decisions and subjects who consider hypothetical stakes. Our findings indicate that, apart from incentives, gender plays an important role for the categorization of different social preferences.

Cultures differ in many important ways, but one trait appears to be universally valued: prosociality. For one’s reputation, around the world, it pays to be nice to others. However, recent research with American participants finds that evaluations of prosocial actions are asymmetric—relatively selfish actions are evaluated according to the magnitude of selfishness but evaluations of relatively generous actions are less sensitive to magnitude. Extremely generous actions are judged roughly as positively as modestly generous actions, but extremely selfish actions are judged much more negatively than modestly selfish actions (Klein & Epley, 2014). Here we test whether this asymmetry in evaluations of prosociality is culture-specific. Across 7 countries, 1,240 participants evaluated actors giving various amounts of money to a stranger. Along with relatively minor cross-cultural differences in evaluations of generous actions, we find cross-cultural similarities in the asymmetry in evaluations of prosociality. We discuss implications for how reputational inferences can enable the cooperation necessary for successful societies.

According to Turnbull's 1972 ethnography The Mountain People, the Ik of Uganda had a culture of selfishness that made them uncooperative. His claims contrast with two widely accepted principles in evolutionary biology, that humans cooperate on larger scales than other species and that culture is an important facilitator of such cooperation. We use recently collected data to examine Ik culture and its influence on Ik behaviour. Turnbull's observations of selfishness were not necessarily inaccurate but they occurred during a severe famine. Cooperation re-emerged when people once again had enough resources to share. Accordingly, Ik donations in unframed Dictator Games are on par with average donations in Dictator Games played by people around the world. Furthermore, Ik culture includes traits that encourage sharing with those in need and a belief in supernatural punishment of selfishness. When these traits are used to frame Dictator Games, the average amounts given by Ik players increase. Turnbull's claim that the Ik have a culture of selfishness can be rejected. Cooperative norms are resilient, and the consensus among scholars that humans are remarkably cooperative and that human cooperation is supported by culture can remain intact.

Giving without the expectation of reward is difficult to understand in organizational contexts. In opposition to a logic based on self-interest or a sense of duty, a “logic of gift” has been proposed as a way to understand the phenomenon of free, unconditional giving. However, the rationale behind, and effects of, this logic have been under-explored. This paper responds by first clarifying the three logics of action—the logic of exchange, the logic of duty, and the logic of gift—and then explains how their balanced integration promises to enhance organizational life and outcomes. Having explicated the unique character and contributions of the logic of gift, the paper further suggests practical implications for management. Encouraging the logic of gift fosters more humane relationships within organizations and to enable individuals to be generous in ways that inspire trust and promote creativity.

The objective of this study is to identify experimental economic tools that can be employed to explain the role of economic behavior in overweight and obesity in the household. We identify three economic experiments that can be used to understand how parent-child economic relationships relate to obesity. Loss aversion experiments are discussed as a tool to understand challenges some individuals face in achieving a healthy diet. Finally, testbed experiments are introduced as a means to test and understand new policies and incentives for better health at the household level.

While the classification project for the simple groups of finite Morley rank is unlikely to produce a classification of the simple groups of finite Morley rank, the enterprise has already arrived at a considerably closer approximation to that ideal goal than could have been realistically anticipated, with a mix of results of several flavors, some classificatory and others more structural, which can be combined when the stars are suitably aligned to produce results at a level of generality which, in parallel areas of group theory, would normally require either some additional geometric structure, or an explicit classification. And Bruno Poizat is generally awesome, though sometimes he goes too far.