The Effect of Compassion Fade on Altruistic Behavior: Experimental Evidence For a Guilt Mitigation Account
63 Pages Posted: 23 Dec 2022 Last revised: 16 Jun 2023
Date Written: December 14, 2022
Abstract
In this paper we investigate the phenomenon of compassion fade: a tendency to act less altruistically when faced with more, rather than fewer individuals in need. Using variations of the dictator game, our design allows us to explore both the determinants of compassion fade, and the mechanism by which it operates. In our first experiment, which uses a between-subject design (n=187), we find that adding a second recipient to a dictator game who always receives a payoff of zero, regardless of the decision-maker’s choice, significantly increases selfish behavior. We follow up with a large-scale experiment on Amazon mTurk using a within-subject design (n= 711). We again find that adding a second unhelpable individual who is in a needy state significantly increases the rate of selfish behavior. However, we also find that compassion fade is sensitive to the level of “need” – of the additional individual. When the unhelpable recipient is not in a needy state, decision makers act significantly less selfishly, compared to when they are in a needy state. Finally, we present evidence that the mechanism of compassion fade is diminishing negative affect (e.g., guilt) that arises from selfish decisions, rather than through the diminishment of warm glow.
Keywords: pro-social behavior, motivated reasoning, altruism, experimental economics, psychology, compassion fade
JEL Classification: D91, C91, D64
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation