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One of the key questions in evolutionary biology and psychology is why individuals help strangers without the possibility of return (Batson et a. 2003, Bowles and Gintis 2004, Gintis et al. 2003, Fehr and Rockenbach 2004). Several scholars raised the idea that during most stages of human evolution humans evolved in small groups with frequently repeated interactions and reputation-building mechanisms (Fehr and Rockenbach 2003, Johnson et al., 2003). Individual selection can favour cooperative strategies directed towards recipients that have helped others in the past. The effect of reputation-building on cooperation with group members has recently been examined by computer simulations and experimental games (Barclay 2004, Fehr and Fischbacher 2003, Milinski et al 2002a, Wedekind and Milinski 2000). In these experiments participants played various games such as reciprocity, trust and public goods games. These investigations, based on experimental games, can obviously provide “naturalistic” conditions for examining several crucial values like cost and benefit of an altruistic act, processes leading to reputation, the role of punishment in enforcing cooperation, etc. However, while experimental games clearly examine the “logic” of cooperative transaction, they have certain limitations. Laboratory experiments recruit subjects who are completely unfamiliar with each other when entering the game. Unfamiliarity and anonimity, however, are usually unrealistic in human groups, where individuals have certain knowledge about the others’ attitudes, behavior, personality, and this knowledge deeply influences their decision to cooperate. Experimental games sometimes create artificial circumstances that people do not encounter in real situations. Furthermore, many important aspects of social circumstances and personality traits could not be investigated appropriately under these experimental designs. Therefore, we have designed an experiment that reflects a realistic situation. The participants of the experiment did not take part in solving one or more tasks in an experimental game but they were induced to respond to an everyday problem while staying within the framework of their own life. A representative of a charity organization requested students of a seminar group to support people in need (lone, elderly, homeless and mentally retarded people). In one setting they could make their offers publicly in the presence of their group mates (public group), while in another setting the offers were concealed, so the others in the group were not aware of them (anonymous group). Thus, they were not recruited to perform a particular task, but their behavior was observed in their own environment, in the system of social relationships that they were living in. In one of our experiments (Bereczkei et al. 2007) we show that more subjects were willing to give assistance to unfamiliar people in need if they could make their charity offers in the presence of their group mates than in a situation when the offers remained concealed from the others. In return, those who were willing to participate in a particular charity activity received a significantly higher score on the scales measuring sympathy and trustworthiness than the others. Finally, a multiple regression analysis revealed that while several personality and behavior traits (cooperative ability, Machiavellianism, sensitivity to norms, sex) play a role in the development of prosocial behavior, the possibility of gaining reputation within the group remains a measurable causal factor of charity support. In the second study, the costly signaling model is used to examine reputation-building as a result of charity offers to strangers (Birkas et al. 2006, Bereczkei et al. in press). This theory states that individuals who engage in altruistic acts serve their own interests by reliably demonstrating qualities underlying the altruistic act. This act may be useful for the group members in future social interactions, such as forming friendships, alliances, or getting mates in a way that provides a net benefit to the altruist Our results showed that significantly more subjects are willing to give assistance if they can make charity offers in the presence of their group members than when the offers are kept secret. In accordance with the costly signaling theory, the likelihood of charity service was strongly influenced by the expected cost of altruistic behavior. Subjects made more costly offers in public groups, while there was a roughly equal chance of making more and less costly offers in anonymous groups. Subjects who were willing to participate in a particular charity activity gained significantly higher reputation scores, measured on a sociometry scale, than others did. The cost of charity correlated with reputation building in the case of charity act judged as the most expensive (giving assistance to mentally retarded children), but not in the other categories of charity offer. In the third study, the effect of the others’ presence on decisions to engage in helping behavior was examined. Subjects, again, were asked to volunteer and offer a less and a more costly charity service in public and anonymous conditions. We found that subjects’ willingness to offer help increased when group mates were directly informed of each other’s decisions. Empathy showed a relative independence of situational factors; ssubjects with higher scores of empathy were more likely to engage in helping activities than those of low empathy, regardless of whether they offered help on public or anonymous conditions and what the perceived degree of cost of altruistic behavior was. Machiavellianism, in contrast, proved to be strongly dependent on the presence of others and the cost of the offered charity act. High-Mach persons were likely to refuse help when the others did not observe them but more willing to give assistance – especially less costly help - if their prosocial behavior occurred with the knowledge of the others. This responsiveness to the strategic distinction between the presence and absence of others can be also explained in terms of reputation-gaining and competitive altruism. Published articles:
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