Document Type
Article
Source of Publication
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
Publication Date
11-1-2020
Abstract
This paper examines how social preferences develop with age. This is done using a range of mini-dictator games from which we classify 665 subjects into a variety of behavioural types. We expand on previous developmental studies of pro-sociality and parochialism by analysing individuals aged 9–67, and by employing a cross country study where participants from Spain interact with participants from different ethnic groups (Arab, East Asian, Black and White) belonging to different countries (Morocco, China, Senegal and Spain). We identify a ‘U-shaped’ relationship between age and egalitarianism that had previously gone unnoticed, and appeared linear. An inverse “U-shaped” relationship is found to be true for altruism. A gender differential is found to emerge in teenage years, with females becoming less altruistic but more egalitarian than males. In contrast to the majority of previous economic studies of the development of social preferences, we report evidence of increased altruism, and decreased egalitarianism and spite expressed towards black individuals from Senegal.
DOI Link
ISSN
Publisher
Elsevier
Volume
179
Disciplines
Business
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Cobo–Reyes, Ramon; Dominguez, Jose J.; García–Quero, Fernando; Grosskopf, Brit; Lacomba, Juan A.; Lagos, Francisco; Liu, Tracy Xiao; and Pearce, Graeme, "The development of social preferences" (2020). All Works. 3393.
https://zuscholars.zu.ac.ae/works/3393
Indexed in Scopus
no
Open Access
yes
Open Access Type
Green: A manuscript of this publication is openly available in a repository