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Who tugs at our heart strings? The effect of avatar images on player generosity in the dictator game

The present research was motivated by a prior study, where several wallets, each containing a photo of either a baby, a puppy, a family, or an elderly couple, were scattered across a city in the United Kingdom. Most of the wallets containing a photo of a baby were returned compared with less than on...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Buchanan, Kathryn, Rolison, Jonathan J., Jinga, Isadora, Thompson, Jessica, Russo, Riccardo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8793313/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34609219
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/17470218211050359
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author Buchanan, Kathryn
Rolison, Jonathan J.
Jinga, Isadora
Thompson, Jessica
Russo, Riccardo
author_facet Buchanan, Kathryn
Rolison, Jonathan J.
Jinga, Isadora
Thompson, Jessica
Russo, Riccardo
author_sort Buchanan, Kathryn
collection PubMed
description The present research was motivated by a prior study, where several wallets, each containing a photo of either a baby, a puppy, a family, or an elderly couple, were scattered across a city in the United Kingdom. Most of the wallets containing a photo of a baby were returned compared with less than one-third of the wallets containing a photo of an elderly couple. To investigate further, in a series of three studies we examined, using a pseudo online version of the dictator game, possible subtle cues supporting prosocial behaviour by manipulating the type of avatar used by the recipient of the donation made by the “dictator.” Overall, it emerged that participants showed significantly higher levels of generosity towards babies and older people, supporting the notion that perceptions of vulnerability and need drive prosocial behaviour.
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spelling pubmed-87933132022-01-28 Who tugs at our heart strings? The effect of avatar images on player generosity in the dictator game Buchanan, Kathryn Rolison, Jonathan J. Jinga, Isadora Thompson, Jessica Russo, Riccardo Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) Original Articles The present research was motivated by a prior study, where several wallets, each containing a photo of either a baby, a puppy, a family, or an elderly couple, were scattered across a city in the United Kingdom. Most of the wallets containing a photo of a baby were returned compared with less than one-third of the wallets containing a photo of an elderly couple. To investigate further, in a series of three studies we examined, using a pseudo online version of the dictator game, possible subtle cues supporting prosocial behaviour by manipulating the type of avatar used by the recipient of the donation made by the “dictator.” Overall, it emerged that participants showed significantly higher levels of generosity towards babies and older people, supporting the notion that perceptions of vulnerability and need drive prosocial behaviour. SAGE Publications 2021-10-25 2022-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8793313/ /pubmed/34609219 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/17470218211050359 Text en © Experimental Psychology Society 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Original Articles
Buchanan, Kathryn
Rolison, Jonathan J.
Jinga, Isadora
Thompson, Jessica
Russo, Riccardo
Who tugs at our heart strings? The effect of avatar images on player generosity in the dictator game
title Who tugs at our heart strings? The effect of avatar images on player generosity in the dictator game
title_full Who tugs at our heart strings? The effect of avatar images on player generosity in the dictator game
title_fullStr Who tugs at our heart strings? The effect of avatar images on player generosity in the dictator game
title_full_unstemmed Who tugs at our heart strings? The effect of avatar images on player generosity in the dictator game
title_short Who tugs at our heart strings? The effect of avatar images on player generosity in the dictator game
title_sort who tugs at our heart strings? the effect of avatar images on player generosity in the dictator game
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8793313/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34609219
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/17470218211050359
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