Introduction: Tastes, Castes and Culture: The Influence of Society on Preferences

Fehr, Ernst; Hoff, Karla

doi:10.1111/j.1468-0297.2011.02478.x

Cited by 148 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Demonstrating that formation of preferences is affected by disadvantaged socio-economic background has potentially important economic and social consequences (Fehr and Hoff, 2011). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parental background and other-regarding preferences in children

2013

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract: Other-regarding preferences are important for establishing and maintaining cooperative outcomes. In this paper, we study how formation of other-regarding preferences during childhood is affected by parental background. Our subjects, aged 4-12 years, are classified into other-regarding types based on simple binary choice dictator games. The main finding is that children of parents with low education are more spiteful, more selfish and less altruistic. This link is robust to controlling for a rich set of child characteristics and class fixed effects. The parental effects stand out against the overall development of preferences, as we find children to become less spiteful and more altruistic with increasing age. Our findings, complemented by an analysis of the World Values Survey data, suggest that low socio-economic status affects parental effort invested in instilling other-regarding preferences into children, making them less likely to acquire cooperative types of preferences. Terms of use: Documents in

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“…Demonstrating that formation of preferences is affected by disadvantaged socio-economic background has potentially important economic and social consequences (Fehr and Hoff, 2011). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parental background and other-regarding preferences in children

2013

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“…As Fehr and Hoff (2011) noted, such views become obsolete with the growing literature showing that preferences can be endogenous and can be shaped by societal and cultural influence (Bowles, 1998;Henrich, 2000;Stern, Dethier, & Rogers, 2005;Eugster, Lalive, Steinhauer, & Zweimüller, 2011;Hoff, Kshetramade, & Fehr, 2011).…”

Section: Relationship Between Culture and Time Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Time Preferences Differ: Evidence from 45 Countries

2010

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We present results from the first large-scale international survey on time preference, conducted in 53 countries. All countries exhibit hyperbolic discounting patterns, i.e., the immediate future is discounted more than far future. We also observe higher heterogeneity for shorter time horizons, consistent with the pattern reviewed by Frederick, Loewenstein, and O'Donoghue (2002). Cultural factors as captured by the Hofstede cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 1991) contribute significantly to the variation of time discounting, even after controlling for economic factors, such as GDP, inflation rate and growth rate. In particular, higher levels of Uncertainty Avoidance are associated with stronger hyperbolic discounting, whereas higher degrees of Individualism and Long Term Orientation predict stronger tendency to wait for larger payoffs. We also find the waiting tendency is correlated with innovation, environmental protection, crediting rating, and body mass index at country level after controlling for county wealth. These results help us to enhance the understanding of differences across financial markets and economic behavior worldwide.

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“…We agree with the comments by van Hoorn (1) on our critique (2): testing causal hypotheses about human behavior is a challenge (1,3). Making progress requires specifying alternative hypotheses and then testing these hypotheses using diverse and converging lines of evidence.…”

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confidence: 48%

Reply to van Hoorn: Converging lines of evidence

Henrich¹,

Boyd²,

McElreath³

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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We agree with the comments by van Hoorn (1) on our critique (2): testing causal hypotheses about human behavior is a challenge (1, 3). Making progress requires specifying alternative hypotheses and then testing these hypotheses using diverse and converging lines of evidence. We have defended the hypothesis that social norms, which culturally coevolved with the institutions of large-scale societies including markets, influence economic decision-making. This hypothesis emerged from a larger set that we developed both at the outset of our project and as we went along. Our interdisciplinary team's initial list of hypotheses included the idea that experimental games might spark an innate reciprocity module that would yield little variation across populations. We also considered the hypothesis that group-level differences might result from individual differences in wealth or income. Nevertheless, what emerged in the data in our first project was (i) substantial variation among 15 populations, (ii) a strong correlation with market integration, and (iii) little relation to individual-level economic or demographic variables. Not satisfied with our first effort, we sampled 10 new populations, replicated these findings with improved protocols (developed based on critiques of the Phase I), and then extended them to two additional experimental games. Along the way, we have explored alternative hypotheses using measures of genetic relatedness, social network position, anonymity manipulations, and framing tools. To our knowledge, no other existing hypotheses can better account for the observed patterns of variation.Several independent lines of evidence converge to support our hypothesis. First, contrary to other accounts, our approach requires that people can readily acquire social behavior or motivations toward anonymous others through cultural learning. This finding is well-established experimentally for children. Experimental work shows that observing a model behaving altruistically in a novel situation leads children to behave more altruistically in the same context. This effect endures weeks later, remains when the child is alone, and is spontaneously enforced by subjects on novices (reviewed in ref. 4). Consistent with this finding, evidence indicates that the prosociality measured in economic games develops slowly over the first three decades of life, not hitting the adult plateau until the mid-20s (4).Our approach also predicts that norms should be contextspecific, and thus, how context matters will often vary among communities with the local norms. Several studies find that context (or framing) not only matters but matters in different ways in different places (3). Our analyses and use of framing techniques confirm this finding in diverse societies (5). Moreover, work using priming tools has already begun to confirm and explore the link between markets (priming markets) and prosocial economic choices (6).Finally, studies of migration underline the importance of nongenetic inheritance by showing that the average behavi...

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Introduction: Tastes, Castes and Culture: The Influence of Society on Preferences

Cited by 148 publications

References 57 publications

Parental background and other-regarding preferences in children

Parental background and other-regarding preferences in children

How Time Preferences Differ: Evidence from 45 Countries

Reply to van Hoorn: Converging lines of evidence

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