Prosocial Behavior Increases with Age across Five Economic Games

Ontogenic studies of human prosociality generally agree on that human prosociality increases from early childhood through early adulthood; however, it has not been established if prosociality increases beyond early adulthood. We examined a sample of 408 non-student residents from Tokyo, Japan, who w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2016-07, Vol.11 (7), p.e0158671-e0158671
Main Authors: Matsumoto, Yoshie, Yamagishi, Toshio, Li, Yang, Kiyonari, Toko
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Age
Age Factors
Aging - psychology
Analysis
Behavior
Biology and Life Sciences
Brain research
Childhood
Children
Cooperation
Cooperative Behavior
Demographics
Developmental biology
Economics
Equality
Exploitation
Female
Games
Games, Experimental
Helping behavior
Human behavior
Humans
Hypotheses
Male
Middle Aged
People and Places
Physical Sciences
Social Behavior
Social Sciences
Studies
Theory
Young Adult
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Summary:Ontogenic studies of human prosociality generally agree on that human prosociality increases from early childhood through early adulthood; however, it has not been established if prosociality increases beyond early adulthood. We examined a sample of 408 non-student residents from Tokyo, Japan, who were evenly distributed across age (20-59) and sex. Participants played five economic games each separated by a few months. We demonstrated that prosocial behavior increased with age beyond early adulthood and this effect was shown across all five economic games. A similar, but weaker, age-related trend was found in one of three social value orientation measures of prosocial preferences. We measured participants' belief that manipulating others is a wise strategy for social success, and found that this belief declined with age. Participants' satisfaction with the unilateral exploitation outcome of the prisoner's dilemma games also declined with age. These two factors-satisfaction with the DC outcome in the prisoner's dilemma games and belief in manipulation-mediated the age effect on both attitudinal and behavioral prosociality. Participants' age-related socio-demographic traits such as marriage, having children, and owning a house weakly mediated the age effect on prosociality through their relationships with satisfaction with the DC outcome and belief in manipulation.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158671