Identifying the relationship between altruism and generosity with the bandwagon effect
Date
2018-04-23
Authors
Po, Aina Bernice U.
Cabaero, Carlos C.
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Abstract
The purpose of the paper is to see whether bandwagon effect contributes to a higher sense of
altruism. Eighty students from the UP School of Economics were recruited to participate in a
classroom experiment. The participants were first asked to answer a questionnaire detailing
their socioeconomic and psychological characteristics. Then they were randomly assigned
into two groups to play modified dictator games where an average contribution was
announced to one of the groups to induce a bandwagon effect. The control group played four
games with five rounds each, with Game 1 and 3 played where each player was given and
initial endowment of ₱200.00 and Game 2 and 4 being played with individual endowments of
₱300.00. The treatment group was asked to play a similar setup, with the exception that an
announcement of the average contributions of the group were given before Games 3 and 4,
respectively. The increase in allocations from Games 1 to 3 and Games 2 to 4 were recorded
for both test groups. Test of means between the increased allocations of each group showed
that all significant differences revealed the treatment group was more generous than the
control group, highlighting the possibility of a bandwagon effect. Ordinary Least Squares
linear regression analysis was carried out using a model that showed the relationship of the
amount allocated with the bandwagon effect, alongside key socioeconomic and psychological
variables. The results show that the bandwagon effect is insignificant in influencing
allocations. Instead, various socioeconomic and psychological variables, like amount of
personal interactions stress in social media and school, as well as personal and familial levels
of disposable income have more significant effects on an individual’s altruism and
generosity.
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Keywords
altruism, generosity