April 6, 2026Journal of Behavioral Decision Making
On Sharing Benefits Created by Costly Help
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Implication
Experiments investigate how surplus from costly help is shared, indicating social norms and wealth influence decisions.
Key Points
- The study aims to understand how the surplus from costly helping acts is divided between benefactors and beneficiaries, influenced by various situational factors.
- Conducted two experiments with 695 participants for judgments and 617 dyads for bargaining choices.
- Manipulated factors such as relative wealth, social distance, and whether help increased gains or prevented losses.
- Compared participants' judgments of surpluses and their bargaining choices regarding the division of surplus.
- Participants allocated about 80% of the surplus to beneficiaries in judgment tasks.
- In bargaining scenarios, surplus was split more equally, aligning with economic theories.
- Pro-social tendencies were observed, indicating less indebtedness to family benefactors compared to commercial ones.
Cite This Study
Kugler et al. (2026) studied this question.