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Altruism and moral foundations in adolescents: An experimental study

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Vol. 37 No. 1 (2022): Dossier: Fighting the black legend about quantitative sociology
https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-529X.2022.68151

Abstract

It is known that actors’ moral considerations interact with contextual factors. This paper explores the hypothesis that the guidance function of adolescents’ ethical concerns is overridden when there is information concerning the wealth of potential beneficiaries. To test this hypothesis, the paper reports several lab-in-the-field experiments concerning adolescent altruism using the dictator game under two conditions: whether or not the dictator had information about their partners’ wealth. Furthermore, the study explored the moderating effects of adolescents’ endorsement of different moral concerns on the relationship between the experimental conditions and altruism. The results show that adolescents who knew the wealth of others were, on average, less altruistic than those who did not. The results also indicate that endorsement of the harm/care moral foundation moderated the relationship between the experimental conditions and altruistic behavior. Thus, adolescents concerned about not harming others tended to be more altruistic when they did not know the extent of their beneficiaries’ wealth.

Keywords:

prosocial behavior, altruism, dictator game, moral foundations

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How to Cite
Salgado, M. (2022). Altruism and moral foundations in adolescents: An experimental study. Revista De Sociología, 37(1). https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-529X.2022.68151
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Revista de Sociología
Facultad de Ciencias Sociales
Universidad de Chile
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