Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-hzqq2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-03-28T13:35:51.947Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

More to morality than mutualism: Consistent contributors exist and they can inspire costly generosity in others

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2013

Michael J. Gill ,
Dominic J. Packer  and
Jay Van Bavel
Michael J. Gill
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015. m.gill@lehigh.eduhttp://cas.lehigh.edu/CASWeb/default.aspx?id=1423djp208@lehigh.eduhttp://www.lehigh.edu/~djp208/Home.html
Dominic J. Packer
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015. m.gill@lehigh.eduhttp://cas.lehigh.edu/CASWeb/default.aspx?id=1423djp208@lehigh.eduhttp://www.lehigh.edu/~djp208/Home.html
Jay Van Bavel
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003. jay.vanbavel@nyu.eduhttp://psych.nyu.edu/vanbavel/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Studies of economic decision-making have revealed the existence of consistent contributors, who always make contributions to the collective good. It is difficult to understand such behavior in terms of mutualistic motives. Furthermore, consistent contributors can elicit apparently altruistic behavior from others. Therefore, although mutualistic motives are likely an important contributor to moral action, there is more to morality than mutualism.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 90
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Olivola, C. Y. & Shafir, E. (2011) The martyrdom effect: When pain and effort increase prosocial contributions. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. (Online first version) doi:10.1002/bdm.767.Google ScholarPubMed
Packer, D. J. & Gill, M. J. (2011) Having good values is not enough: Altruistic values require a situational trigger before they foster generosity in a social dilemma. Paper presented at 14th International Conference on Social Dilemmas, Amsterdam, Netherlands, July 2011.Google Scholar
Tetlock, P. E. (2002) Social functionalist frameworks for judgment and choice: Intuitive politicians, theologians, and prosecutors. Psychological Review 109(3):451–71.Google Scholar
Van Bavel, J. J., Packer, D. J., Haas, I. J., & Cunningham, W. A. (2012). The importance of moral construal: Moral vs. non-moral construal elicits faster, more extreme and universal evaluations of the same actions. PLoS ONE. 7(11): e48693. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048693.Google Scholar
Weber, J. M. & Murnighan, J. K. (2008) Suckers or saviors? Consistent contributors in social dilemmas. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95(6):1340–53. doi:10.1037/a0012454.Google Scholar