Induced Negative Mood Increases Dictator Game Giving

Abstract

The study examines the influence of induced negative mood on dictator game giving (DGG) with two recipients. Participants (N = 63) played the role of a dictator in a three-player dictator game. They could choose among two options: an altruistic option, where two receivers receive 10 Euros and the dictator himself receives nothing, or a selfish option, where the dictator himself receives 5 Euros and both receivers receive nothing. For half of the participants, the second option entailed that only one receiver receives nothing and the other receives 10 Euros. After four rounds, participants were randomly assigned to look at 10 pictures with either positive or negative emotional content with the purpose of inducing positive or negative mood. The results show that looking at pictures with negative emotional content increases anxiety and skin conductance and increases DGG in the remaining four rounds of the game. On the other hand, whether the selfish option would imply that one or both recipients receive nothing does not seem to have a strong influence on DGG.PsycINFO Classification code: 2340; 2360.

Weathering the Storm

“…Other games played in these communities show higher rates of allocations to self and in-group than out-group (McNamara and Henrich 2017a;McNamara, Norenzayan, and Henrich 2016). Contrary to predictions that insecurity reduces offers to distant others, European samples have shown negative mood framing effects can increase dictator game offers (Pérez-Dueñas et al 2018), but this finding would not explain the lack of difference between the insecurity priming conditions found in the current study.…”

It Does (Not) Get Better: Expected Income Violation and Altruism

“…More generally, it also contributes to the literature exploring the role of emotions in economic behavior (e.g., Loewenstein, 2000;Loewenstein and Lerner, 2003;Rick and Loewenstein, 2008;Battigalli et al, 2019). Unlike previous research which directly manipulates mood or emotional state and measure its effect on other regarding preferences, (e.g., Capra, 2004;Kirchsteiger et al, 2006;Tan and Forgas, 2010;Ibanez et al, 2017;Pérez-Dueñas et al, 2018), we investigated how emotions can explain the effect of the violations of expectations on a subsequent pro-social behavior. Our paper provides suggestive evidence that anticipatory emotions are a better predictor of the effect of losses and gains on transfers than emotions after revelation.…”

“…Indeed, emotions have been shown to affect behavior (e.g., Rick and Loewenstein, 2008;Lerner et al, 2015). However, only a few papers have investigated how emotions affect pro-social behavior, using mostly mood or abstract emotional induction procedures (e.g., Capra, 2004;Kirchsteiger et al, 2006;Tan and Forgas, 2010;Ibanez et al, 2017;Pérez-Dueñas et al, 2018). Here, we do not study the effect of emotion on pro-social behavior but rather how emotions can explain the effect of the violations of expectations on a subsequent pro-social behavior.…”

Good news reduces trust in government and its efficacy: The case of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine announcement

“…First, there is a large literature in psychology and economics on how positive (negative) news can cause positive (negative) affect or mood changes in individuals, with the result that they behave and process information differently in a range of other social settings. These studies focus, for instance, on mood and the dictator game [ 18 – 20 ], mood and risk preferences [ 21 – 24 ], and mood and public goods and trust games [ 15 , 25 – 27 ]. Positive affect has been studied less often in this literature than negative affect.…”