Nice to You, Nicer to Me: Does Self-Serving Generosity Diminish the Reciprocal Response?

42 Pages Posted: 14 Oct 2016 Last revised: 5 Oct 2017

See all articles by Daniel Woods

Daniel Woods

Purdue University

Maroš Servátka

Macquarie Graduate School of Management - MGSM Experimental Economics Laboratory

Date Written: September 26, 2017

Abstract

Reciprocity has been shown to be sensitive to perceived intentions, however, not much is known about the intensity of reciprocal responses to the precise nature of those intentions. For example, a person can strategically appear to be kind while being self-serving or can be selflessly (genuinely) kind. Do these two intentions elicit different reciprocal reactions? We propose a conjecture that self-serving but generous actions diminish the positively reciprocal response, compared to selfless generous actions. We classify actions that increase a recipient’s maximum payoff, but by less than the giver’s maximum payoff, as being self-serving generous actions, while classifying actions that increase a recipient’s maximum payoff by more than the giver’s as selfless generous actions. We hypothesize that selfless generous actions are considered more generous than self-serving generous actions, and that self-serving generous actions will therefore result in a diminished reciprocal response. We test this conjecture using two novel experimental designs. We find some evidence that subjects perceive self-serving generous actions as being less generous than selfless generous actions, but no empirical support for our conjecture on the diminished reciprocal response.

Keywords: Reciprocity, Generosity, Self-Serving, Genuine, Strategic, Experiment, Revealed Altruism, Lost Wallet Game, Investment Game

JEL Classification: C70, C91

Suggested Citation

Woods, Daniel and Servátka, Maroš, Nice to You, Nicer to Me: Does Self-Serving Generosity Diminish the Reciprocal Response? (September 26, 2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2852181 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2852181

Daniel Woods

Purdue University ( email )

West Lafayette, IN 47907-1310
United States

Maroš Servátka (Contact Author)

Macquarie Graduate School of Management - MGSM Experimental Economics Laboratory ( email )

Sydney
Australia

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