Altruistic Or Expected Leadership?

We provide experimental evidence to assess whether pro-social leading is motivated by altruism or by a less lofty desire to conform with expectations. We find a sizable minority of altruistic individuals who act more pro-socially when they can influence others. Whether or not an individual acts more pro-socially when she can influence others, she wants her actions made public only if it will increase others' pro-sociality, which turns out to be a telltale sign of altruism. Despite some evidence that pro-social leading is partly driven by conformity, altruism wins the day.

The paper corresponding to this dataset can be found in scholar.harvard.edu/duque/research

本研究提供实证证据以评估亲社会领导行为是否源于利他主义，抑或源于更低调的期望一致性追求。研究发现，在能够影响他人时，部分利他主义者表现出更强烈的亲社会行为。无论个体是否在能够影响他人时表现出更亲社会的行为，他们仅愿将自身行为公之于众，若这将提升他人的亲社会性，这一结果亦成为利他主义的有力证据。尽管存在部分证据表明亲社会领导行为部分由从众心理驱动，但利他主义终胜一筹。相应数据集的论文可查阅于scholar.harvard.edu/duque/research。