Parental background and other-regarding preferences in children

Other-regarding preferences are important for establishing and maintaining cooperative outcomes. In this paper, we study how the formation of other-regarding preferences during childhood is related to parental background. Our subjects, aged 4–12 years, are classified into other-regarding types based...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Experimental economics : a journal of the Economic Science Association 2014-03, Vol.17 (1), p.24-46
Main Authors: Bauer, Michal, Chytilová, Julie, Pertold-Gebicka, Barbara
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Altruism
Behavioral/Experimental Economics
Child development
Children
Children & youth
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive ability
Cooperation
Economic models
Economic statistics
Economic theory
Economic Theory/Quantitative Economics/Mathematical Methods
Economics
Economics and Finance
Families & family life
Field work
Game Theory
Inequality
Microeconomics
Operations Research/Decision Theory
Parents
Parents & parenting
Preferences
Social and Behav. Sciences
Social sciences
Socialization
Socioeconomic factors
Studies
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Summary:Other-regarding preferences are important for establishing and maintaining cooperative outcomes. In this paper, we study how the formation of other-regarding preferences during childhood is related to parental background. Our subjects, aged 4–12 years, are classified into other-regarding types based on simple binary-choice dictator games. The main finding is that the children of parents with low education are less altruistic, more selfish, and more likely to be weakly spiteful. This link is robust to controlling for a rich set of children’s characteristics and class fixed effects. It also stands out against the overall development of preferences, as we find children to become more altruistic, less selfish, and less likely to be weakly spiteful with increasing age. The results, supported by a complementary analysis of World Values Survey data, suggest an important role of socialization in the formation of other-regarding preferences.
ISSN:1386-4157
1573-6938
DOI:10.1007/s10683-013-9355-y