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Positive reputation for altruism toward future generations regardless of the cost for current others

Recently, altruism toward future generations (future altruism) has become a hot research topic. Although future altruism has been observed in several previous experiments, it is not yet clear when and why people are more likely to engage in future altruism. Drawing upon the empirical literature of r...

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Autores principales: Inoue, Yukako, Mifune, Nobuhiro, Saijo, Tatsuyoshi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9902652/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36760903
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.895619
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author Inoue, Yukako
Mifune, Nobuhiro
Saijo, Tatsuyoshi
author_facet Inoue, Yukako
Mifune, Nobuhiro
Saijo, Tatsuyoshi
author_sort Inoue, Yukako
collection PubMed
description Recently, altruism toward future generations (future altruism) has become a hot research topic. Although future altruism has been observed in several previous experiments, it is not yet clear when and why people are more likely to engage in future altruism. Drawing upon the empirical literature of reputation and cooperation, we predicted that future altruism brings reputational disadvantages. Accordingly, we investigated whether future altruism was evaluated positively or negatively by others in the current generation in two vignette studies (total N = 1,237). Contrary to our initial prediction, we found that future altruism was positively evaluated even when it decreased the payoff of the members of the current generation. The difference in the evaluation of future altruism, as opposed to unsustainable current-generation focused behavior, was most pronounced when people do not know how a future altruist allocates rewards among individuals in the current generation. However, the positive evaluation of future altruism did not stem from the expectation that future altruists would also be altruistic toward the current generation. These results indicated that reputational benefits (i.e., positive reputation from others in the current generation) promote future altruism.
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spelling pubmed-99026522023-02-08 Positive reputation for altruism toward future generations regardless of the cost for current others Inoue, Yukako Mifune, Nobuhiro Saijo, Tatsuyoshi Front Psychol Psychology Recently, altruism toward future generations (future altruism) has become a hot research topic. Although future altruism has been observed in several previous experiments, it is not yet clear when and why people are more likely to engage in future altruism. Drawing upon the empirical literature of reputation and cooperation, we predicted that future altruism brings reputational disadvantages. Accordingly, we investigated whether future altruism was evaluated positively or negatively by others in the current generation in two vignette studies (total N = 1,237). Contrary to our initial prediction, we found that future altruism was positively evaluated even when it decreased the payoff of the members of the current generation. The difference in the evaluation of future altruism, as opposed to unsustainable current-generation focused behavior, was most pronounced when people do not know how a future altruist allocates rewards among individuals in the current generation. However, the positive evaluation of future altruism did not stem from the expectation that future altruists would also be altruistic toward the current generation. These results indicated that reputational benefits (i.e., positive reputation from others in the current generation) promote future altruism. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-01-24 /pmc/articles/PMC9902652/ /pubmed/36760903 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.895619 Text en Copyright © 2023 Inoue, Mifune and Saijo. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Inoue, Yukako
Mifune, Nobuhiro
Saijo, Tatsuyoshi
Positive reputation for altruism toward future generations regardless of the cost for current others
title Positive reputation for altruism toward future generations regardless of the cost for current others
title_full Positive reputation for altruism toward future generations regardless of the cost for current others
title_fullStr Positive reputation for altruism toward future generations regardless of the cost for current others
title_full_unstemmed Positive reputation for altruism toward future generations regardless of the cost for current others
title_short Positive reputation for altruism toward future generations regardless of the cost for current others
title_sort positive reputation for altruism toward future generations regardless of the cost for current others
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9902652/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36760903
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.895619
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