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

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Yukako Inoue¹  Nobuhiro Mifune¹  Tatsuyoshi Saijo¹ 

[1] Research Institute for Future Design, Kochi University of Technology;School of Economics and Management, Kochi University of Technology;Research Institute for Humanity and Nature

关键词: Altruism;    Future generations;    Intergenerational dilemma;    sustainability;    reputation;    Evaluation;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2022.895619

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

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 benefits. 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). 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.

【 授权许可】

CC BY