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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1473500

Seemingly altruistic behavior and strategic ignorance in a dictator game with potential loss

Provisionally accepted
Keisuke Yamamoto Keisuke Yamamoto 1*Hirofumi Hashimoto Hirofumi Hashimoto 2
  • 1 Kyoto Bunkyo University, Uji, Japan
  • 2 Osaka Metropolitan University, Osaka, Japan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Previous studies have indicated that in the standard binary version of the dictator game, people are less likely to behave altruistically when given the opportunity to be strategically ignorant. The present study aims to assess the robustness of individuals' strategic ignorance in the context of the emergence of empathic concern. It is reasonable to hypothesize that traditional standard dictator games may not be an optimal context for the emergence of empathic concern. Accordingly, the purpose of the present study is to use a dictator game with loss potential that facilitates player empathic concern to investigate the emergence of (seemingly) altruistic behavior and strategic ignorance in the context of empathy. The results of a web experiment with 200 Japanese adults showed that our manipulation of loss had no effect on the occurrence of altruistic behavior and strategic ignorance. Moreover, even in situations in which the participant as a dictator, is aware that the recipient has suffered a loss, they behave as if they have a legitimate reason not to act altruistically by being strategically ignorant. This result demonstrates the robustness of strategic

    Keywords: dictator game, Strategic ignorance, empathy-altruism hypothesis, Empathic concern, Potential loss

    Received: 31 Jul 2024; Accepted: 28 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Yamamoto and Hashimoto. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Keisuke Yamamoto, Kyoto Bunkyo University, Uji, Japan

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