Population Health, Health Systems and Innovation, Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa.
Department of Economics, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.
PLoS One. 2018 Apr 17;13(4):e0196175. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0196175. eCollection 2018.
This paper reports on a social discounting experiment conducted with university students in South Africa. In line with other social discounting task experiments, participants identify target individuals at different degrees of intimacy in their social network and then make 10 choices involving sums of money for themselves or their targets. For an altruism premium to exist, senders' donations to recipients should be positive, statistically and economically significant, and independent of relationship closeness. We hypothesize that in addition to the altruism premium for kin documented in the literature, there may be other premia for family in general and for partners and friends. We find that, apart from the "kinship" premium, there is a sizeable "intimacy" premium, which together translates into a substantial "family" premium. The study also finds a "friendship premium", as is documented in various experiments. The closeness of relationships among family and kin, especially close kin, has a significant and large effect on altruism. The results also attest to the importance of the extended family in regards to the "kinship" premium on altruism. These various premiums on altruism emphasise the importance of the supportive role of various social systems. Nevertheless, altruism within families and among close kin might also be enhanced by building more cohesive and stronger families using developmental social welfare programmes.
本文报告了在南非大学生中进行的一项社会贴现实验。与其他社会贴现任务实验一样，参与者确定其社交网络中不同亲密程度的目标个体，然后对涉及自己或目标个体的金钱的 10 种选择进行决策。如果存在利他主义溢价，那么寄件人向收件人的捐款应该是积极的、具有统计学和经济学意义的，并且与关系亲密程度无关。我们假设，除了文献中记录的亲属的利他主义溢价之外，一般家庭以及伴侣和朋友可能还有其他溢价。我们发现，除了“亲属”溢价之外，还有相当大的“亲密”溢价，这加起来就构成了相当大的“家庭”溢价。该研究还发现了各种实验中记录的“友谊溢价”。家庭和亲属之间的关系，尤其是近亲之间的关系的亲密程度，对利他主义有显著且重大的影响。研究结果还证明了大家庭在利他主义的“亲属”溢价方面的重要性。这些利他主义的各种溢价强调了各种社会制度的支持作用的重要性。然而，通过使用发展性社会福利计划来构建更具凝聚力和更强大的家庭，家庭内部和近亲之间的利他主义也可能得到增强。
