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Groundless altruism: Why it makes sense to risk one's life for other people's money
Dumitru, Magdalena; Joergensen, Gitte
2017The 26th Subjective Probability, Utility, and Decision Making Conference
 

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Keywords :
altruism; game theory; cultural group selection
Abstract :
[en] In a study where participants were asked to make a series of assessments in distinct circumstances, we show that altruistic agents may incur disadvantages in the name of values they do not believe in (i.e., saving money) as long as they believe in the overarching category (e.g., it is a ‘good deed’ to recover other people’s money). Whereas previous research mostly targeted ultimate benefits (i.e., whether or not altruistic agents incur real disadvantages), the axiological basis of altruistic acts (i.e., whether or not they have the same worth to self and to others) has remained unchallenged. Here, we explored “groundless altruism” by asking participants to rate their agreement with the statement ‘Money is worth risking my life for’ before and after presenting them with an altruistic scenario. There was a dramatic increase in the proportion of ‘yes’ responses from the first to the second rating. Moreover, as predicted by the cultural group selection theory, the status of the agent (low-rank police employee v s. secret agent) was largely irrelevant. These findings suggest that social constructs such as categorisation have the potential to significantly influence human behaviour in various domains from moral psychology to work ethics to language learning.
Disciplines :
Theoretical & cognitive psychology
Author, co-author :
Dumitru, Magdalena ;  Université de Liège > Département de Psychologie > Psychopathologie cognitive
Joergensen, Gitte
Language :
English
Title :
Groundless altruism: Why it makes sense to risk one's life for other people's money
Publication date :
22 August 2017
Event name :
The 26th Subjective Probability, Utility, and Decision Making Conference
Event organizer :
European Association for Decision Making
Event place :
Haifa, Israel
Event date :
from 20-08-2017 to 24-08-2017
Audience :
International
European Projects :
FP7 - 600405 - BEIPD - Be International Post-Doc - Euregio and Greater Region
Funders :
CE - Commission Européenne [BE]
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since 12 September 2017

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