The asymmetric effect of narratives on prosocial behavior

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hillenbrand, Adrian; Verrina, Eugenio
• 署名单位: Helmholtz Association; Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; Leibniz Association; Zentrum fur Europaische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon (ENS de LYON); Universite Claude Bernard Lyon 1; Universite Jean Monnet; Universite Lyon 2
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2022.06.008
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 241-270
• 关键词: Narrative; prosocial behavior; Motivated reasoning; dictator game; SVO

摘要

We study how positive narratives (stories in favor of a prosocial action) and negative narratives (stories in favor of a selfish action) influence prosocial behavior in a series of lab and online experiments with more than 1500 subjects. We find that, both positive and negative narratives are effective at changing how actions are perceived. However, while positive narratives increase prosocial behavior, negative narratives do not move aggregate behavior and - if anything - lead to slightly more prosocial behavior. Our results indicate that this may be due to the fact that when following a negative narrative an individual is viewed as influenceable - something that appears to be undesirable. Taken together, our study suggests that positive and negative narratives are not just the flip sides of the same coin. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).