Can intentions spoil the kindness of a gift? - An experimental study

Christina Strassmair

Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems from Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich

Abstract: Consider a situation where person A undertakes acostly action that benefits person B. This behavior seems altruistic. However, if A expects a reward in return from B, then A's action may be motivated by expected rewards rather than by pure altruism. The question we address in this experimental study is how B reacts to A's intentions. We vary the probability that the second mover in a trust game can reciprocate and analyze effects on second mover behavior. Our results suggest that expected rewards do not spoil the perceived kindness of an action and the action's rewards.

Keywords: social preferences; intentions; beliefs; psychological game theory; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-soc and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/13252/1/302.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:trf:wpaper:302

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems from Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tamilla Benkelberg ().