Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/204698 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Papers of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods No. 2018/16
Publisher: 
Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn
Abstract: 
Narratives pervade almost any aspect of our life and play a particularly important role in moral and prosocial decision-making. We study how positive (stories in favor of a prosocial action) and negative (stories in favor of a selfish action) narratives influence prosocial behavior. Our main findings are that positive narratives increase giving substantially, especially for selfish types, compared to a baseline with no narratives. Negative narratives, on the other hand, have a differential effect. Prosocial types decrease their giving, while selfish types give more than in the baseline. We also find that positive narratives lead to a binary response (comply or not comply), while negative narratives induce a more gradual trade-off.
Subjects: 
Prosocial behavior
narratives
justifications
motivated moral reasoning
dictator game
SVO
JEL: 
C91
D63
D64
D83
D91
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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