Decision making in public good games: Implications on situational and dispositional determinants of helping behaviours and recipients' reactions

It had been suggested in the literature (Tsang, 2006; Watkins et al. 2006) that the experience of gratitude and indebtedness, upon receipt of aid, has differential influence on the beneficiaries’ intentions to reciprocate in the future. One main objective of this study is to validate the above mentioned claims, through the use of an economic game of which 85 students from the University of Nottingham participated. Participants were randomly paired and each partner was assigned either the role of a potential helper (P1) or help-recipient (P2). Costs of helping were manipulated across conditions. We also examined how conditionality of helping (i.e. whether or not to tax the expected return) served to influence recipients’ emotional reactions (e.g. Gratitude), as well as behavioural retaliation towards their helpers. Statistical analysis reveals that helping rate did not significantly differ across the two cost conditions. Furthermore, ANOVA shows that, compared to P2s being helped, P2s who were not helped reported a significantly lower partner liking, eagerness to reciprocate, state gratitude and indebtedness towards their partners. Conditionally helped P2s were more likely to undervalue their partners’ helping and also marginally less willing to reciprocate than unconditionally helped P2s. The present data revealed that, in a public good game setting, cost of helping may not predict the helping rate. Meanwhile, the fact that 41% (N=18) of P1s chose to help without expecting returns also lent support to the notion of warm-glow helping, which asserts an egoistic motive of helping for utility gain among helpers (Andreoni, 1990).