Dimensions of Altruism: Do Evaluations of Prosocial Behavior Track Social Good or Personal Sacrifice?

Abstract

Do we praise altruistic acts because they produce social benefits or because they entail a personal sacrifice? Across five studies, we find that people mainly rely on personal cost rather than social benefit when evaluating prosocial actors. This occurs because sacrifice, but not benefit, is taken as a signal of moral character and an input to reputational judgments (Studies 1 and 2). We tested three possible boundary conditions, finding that the effects are similar for actions that benefit the in-group versus the out-group (Study 3), but that people do account for social effectiveness when evaluating donations of time (Study 4) and when high-cost but ineffective acts are pitted directly against low-cost but effective acts in joint evaluation (Study 5). We argue that these results have far-reaching implications for the psychology and philosophy of altruism, as well as practical import for charitable giving, particularly the effective altruism movement.

Keywords: prosocial behavior, altruism, moral psychology, reputation, judgment and decision-making

JEL Classification: D03, D1, D3, D64, D8, H4, I3, M3, O1