Jin Jia, Pei Guanxiong, Ma Qingguo
Business School, Ningbo UniversityNingbo, China; Academy of Neuroeconomics and Neuromanagement, Ningbo UniversityNingbo, China.
School of Management, Zhejiang UniversityHangzhou, China; Institute of Neural Management Sciences, Zhejiang University of TechnologyHangzhou, China.
Front Psychol. 2017 Mar 15;8:392. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00392. eCollection 2017.
As a measure of how prosocial behavior depends on social distance, social discounting is defined as the decrease in generosity between the decision maker and the recipient as the social distance increases. While risk is a ubiquitous part of modern life, there is limited research on the relationship between risk and prosocial behavior. In the present experiment, we empirically test whether risk has an influence on social discounting. We use the choice titration procedure to examine this effect. Our data show that independent of risk, participants are less eager to forego money and exhibit more selfishness toward a specific person when the social distance increases; these findings are reflected in the hyperbolic model. Interestingly, risk influences the shape of the social discounting function, which is reflected in the notable different discount rates. Individuals who make decisions under risk yield a smaller discount rate than those who make decisions without risk, i.e., under risk subjects reduce less their generosity as a function of the social distance. Furthermore, this distinct type of generosity occurs typically among individuals with 10-distance recipients but not with the closest- and furthest-social-distance recipients.
作为衡量亲社会行为如何依赖于社会距离的一种方式，社会折扣被定义为随着社会距离的增加，决策者与接受者之间慷慨程度的降低。虽然风险是现代生活中普遍存在的一部分，但关于风险与亲社会行为之间关系的研究却很有限。在本实验中，我们通过实证检验风险是否对社会折扣有影响。我们使用选择滴定程序来检验这种效应。我们的数据表明，与风险无关，当社会距离增加时，参与者不太愿意放弃金钱，并且对特定的人表现出更多的自私；这些发现反映在双曲线模型中。有趣的是，风险会影响社会折扣函数的形状，这体现在显著不同的折扣率上。在有风险情况下做出决策的个体产生的折扣率比无风险情况下做出决策的个体要小，即有风险时，个体作为社会距离函数减少的慷慨程度较小。此外，这种独特类型的慷慨通常发生在与接受者有10个距离的个体中，而不是与最近和最远社会距离的接受者中。
