The Broken Chain: Evidence Against Emotionally Driven Upstream Indirect Reciprocity

Psychologists claim that being treated kindly puts individuals in a positive emotional state: they then treat an unrelated third party more kindly. Numerous experiments document that subjects indeed ‘pay forward’ specific behavior. For example, they are less generous after having experienced stinginess. This, however, is not necessarily driven by emotions. Subjects may also imitate what they regard as socially adequate behavior. Here, I present an experiment in which imitation is not possible at the next opportunity to act with a stranger: after being given either a fun or an annoying job, subjects have to decide whether to be generous or not. I find that although subjects who are given the annoying job report more negative emotions than those with the fun job, they do not treat an unrelated third person more unkindly in terms of passing on less money. Hypotheses: The objective of the study was to see whether people donate less money to an uninvolved bystander after having been assigned an annoying job (encryptor=1) rather than a fun job (encryptor=0). As a manipulation check, Happiness is recorded at various moments during the experiment using a Manikin-scale. Measurement Instruments: Subjects gave answers via a computer interface in a laboratory. Donation choices were paid out accordingly. Data Collection Method: Data Collection in the presence of an experimenter Group Administration Computer-Supported

心理学家宣称，受到友善对待会使个体处于积极的情绪状态：随后他们对待无关的第三方也会更加友善。众多实验记录了受试者确实会‘传递’特定的行为。例如，在经历了吝啬之后，他们变得不那么慷慨。然而，这并非必然由情绪驱动。受试者也可能模仿他们认为符合社会规范的行为。在此，我呈现了一项实验，其中在随后的机会与陌生人互动时，模仿行为是不可能发生的：在完成一项有趣或令人厌烦的工作后，受试者必须决定是否慷慨。我发现，尽管被分配到令人厌烦工作的受试者报告的情绪比完成有趣工作的受试者更为消极，但他们并不因传递较少的金钱而对无关的第三方表现出更加刻薄的态度。假设：本研究的目的是观察在分配到令人厌烦的工作（加密器=1）而非有趣的工作（加密器=0）之后，人们是否会对无关的旁观者捐赠较少的金钱。作为一种操作检验，实验期间使用情感小丑量表在不同时刻记录了幸福感。测量工具：受试者通过计算机界面在实验室中给出答案。相应的捐赠选择会被支付。数据收集方法：在实验者的在场下进行数据收集。分组管理 计算机辅助