Physical Attractiveness and Altruism in Two Modified Dictator Games

Communicating the cost of your altruism makes you cool—competitive altruism and sexual selection in a real-life charity situation

Abstract

Maintaining a good reputation is crucial for humans. Altruism, e.g. charity, may serve as a costly signal that enhances reputation based on the real or communicated cost. Fundraising via charity running triggers competitive altruism when potential donors donate in reaction to the reputation increase of the fundraiser. Using real-life data of marathonists and half-marathonists (388 runners) and their 9281 donors, the present research focuses on how the communicated cost and goal of a charity run affected the potential donors. We analysed the introductory texts of the runners presented online according to the cost and the social benefit of the fundraising communicated by them. We have shown that emphasizing more the subjective cost of running and the social benefit of the goal, or writing a longer text, attracted more donors and, even though the average amount of donation per donor did not increase, still lead to a greater amount of donations collected overall by the fundraiser. It was also shown that a higher communicated subjective cost resulted in a higher ratio of opposite-sex donors, both in the case of male and female runners, suggesting that the communication of the cost of an altruistic act might be the object of sexual selection.

Significance statement

A good reputation is crucial for humans, as a reputable person enjoys several benefits. One way to maintain a good reputation is to be altruistic, e.g. doing charity. A seemingly high cost and a socially accepted goal may result in a higher reputation. Using data from a charity running community we demonstrate that fundraisers who emphasize their subjective cost (how difficult to run), and emphasize the good goal of the charity, attract more donors, and even though the average amount of each donation does not increase, a higher number of donors results in a greater amount of donations collected overall. Talking about the difficulties of the charity run results in a higher ratio of opposite-sex donors. Our results may be helpful to plan more successful charity events or to make a human community more altruistic and cooperative in general.

Looking Like a Million Dollars: Does Attractiveness Priming Increase Altruistic Behavior in Experimental Games?

The emergence of altruistic behavior constitutes one of the most widely studied problems in evolutionary biology and behavioral science. Multiple explanations have been proposed, most importantly including kin selection, reciprocity, and costly signaling in sexual selection. In order to test the latter, this study investigated whether people behave more altruistically when primed by photographs of attractive faces and whether more or less altruistic people differ in the number of sexual and romantic partners. Participants in the general population (N = 158, 84 F, 74 M) first rated the attractiveness of photographs of 20 faces of the opposite (sexually preferred) sex and then played the Dictator and Ultimatum Games (DG and UG). The photograph rating acted as priming; half the participants received photographs of people rated as more attractive than average in an earlier study, and the other half received photographs previously rated as less attractive. The attractiveness-primed participants, especially men, were expected to behave more altruistically-signaling that they are desirable, resource-possessing partners. We also expected altruists to self-report more sexual and romantic partners. The observed difference between altruistic behaviors in the attractiveness- and unattractiveness-primed groups occurred in UG offers, however, in the opposite than expected direction in women. The number of sexual partners was positively correlated to minimum acceptable offers (MAOs) in the UG, in line with expectations based on the theory of costly signaling.

Beauty perks: Physical appearance, earnings, and fringe benefits

While the existence of a beauty premium is documented for many labour markets, there has been no study on the association of attractiveness with fringe benefits. This is a significant limitation of the extant literature, since fringe benefits are increasingly acknowledged as an integral part of the employees' compensation, and a main indicator of job quality. Using the Canadian General Social Survey of 2016, the present paper examines how a self-rated measure of attractiveness associates with both labour earnings and fringe benefits. Employing a rich set of controls, no evidence for a beauty premium is found for men, while there is some evidence for a beauty penalty for women. However, attractiveness is found to positively predict the number of fringe benefits of both men and women. Therefore, at equal level of earnings, more attractive individuals appear able to secure higher quality jobs, as measured by the number of fringe benefits. The results, hence, suggest that the effects of attractiveness on labour market outcomes cannot be fully captured by a separate examination of earnings and the hiring process.

Number of friends and self-perception among Jamaican children: the role of attractiveness and fluctuating asymmetry

The role that physical attractiveness and fluctuating asymmetry (FA), a measure of developmental instability, play in self-perception and peer associations were explored in a well-studied cohort of Jamaican children using a novel research paradigm where subjects were already known to each other for extensive periods of time. The results showed that how attractive a child was perceived by others was significantly positively correlated with self-ratings of attractiveness. Contrary to findings from WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) samples, the study found a reversal in the sex differences in self-perceived attractiveness and self-esteem, where Jamaican females rate themselves more attractive and report higher self-esteem than do males. Attractiveness also predicts overall popularity, as measured by desirability as a friend and the percentage of peers who choose an individual as a friend. Attractive individuals of both sexes were chosen more often as ‘friends’. A significant correlation was also found between an individual’s FA and the average FA of those chosen as friends. However, the effect was primarily due to preferences by males for female friends possessing similar levels of FA, which could be an effective strategy in reducing future mating effort.

Associations between empathy and altruistic sharing behavior in Chinese adults

Previous research has shown that affective empathy, rather than cognitive empathy, significantly predicts people's altruistic sharing behavior in economic games. However, most of these studies were conducted in Western populations. There might be cultural differences in the relations between empathy and altruism due to different levels of empathy between Western and Asian individuals. In this study, we measured different aspects of empathy in Chinese adults as well as their allocation offers in the dictator and ultimatum games. We found that cognitive empathy, but not affective empathy, was a significant predictor of adults' altruistic sharing behavior in the two economic games. Subjective family income was also revealed to be a significant predictor of individuals' altruism in the ultimatum game, such that people with lower subjective family income tended to be more generous. Potential implications of our findings are discussed.

Can I Rely on You?

This paper introduces a strategic element into the dictator game by allowing recipients to select their dictator. Recipients are presented with the photographs of two dictators and the envelopes containing their allocations, and are then asked to select which dictator’s gift they would like to receive. The recipient is paid the contents of the envelope they select. The photographs carry information about the gender and race/ethnicity of the dictators, and we ask an independent sample of raters to evaluate the photographs for other characteristics. While gender and ethnicity do not affect the recipient’s choice, one characteristic inferred from the photos makes them significantly more likely to be selected: Their perceived reliability.