Transcript Be Aware of Popular Kids Bearing Gifts

Beware of Popular Kids
Bearing Gifts
Jingnan Chen (University of Exeter)
Daniel Houser (ICES & George Mason University)
Natalia Montinari (University of Lund)
Marco Piovesan (University of Copenhagen)
SEA Workshop Celebrating Lise and John
21 November, 2014
Thank you
Lise and John!
For your dedication to excellence!
For your support for our profession!
For inspiration!
Purpose
Investigate the relationship between
popularity and pro-sociality in both
Public and Private.
Motivation
Strong correlation between popularity and
generosity. Popular people are perceived to
be pro-social
George Lucas donated
$4,250,000 since 2010.
Taylor Swift’s generosity
lands her state honor.
Motivation
Non-human primate study of hierarchies
suggests that higher-ranking chimpanzees are
more pro-social than lower-ranking. (Horner
et al. PNAS 2001)
Key Question
Popular people are innately more
generous
or
better public image management?
Applications
• Charitable giving
• Politician’s decision making
• Behavioral change from “double-blind” to
“single-blind”
• …
What is popularity?
Degree of likability and level of support from the
peers. (Wikipedia)
 For our purpose, a person is more popular if
more of her peers desire to be in her company.
Popularity gives rise to status. And status can confer
popularity. Some sociologists use popularity and
status interchangeably (Cillensen & Lausu, 2011).
Related Literature
Being popular (high status) has great economic
consequences
• Seize a greater share in the surplus in market
(Ball & Eckel, 2001)
• Enjoy wager premium later in life (Conti et al.
2013)
• Celebrity endorsement deals.
Related Literature
Being popular (high status) has great positive
developmental consequences on children
• Being unpopular is associated with adverse
behavior, poor academic performances and
poor psychological health (Kosloski & Bell,
2003).
Related Literature
• Being popular is also correlated with greater prosociality (Cillessen & Mayeux, 2004; LaFontana &
Cillessen, 1999, 2002).
• Pro-social behaviors are foundation of prosperous
society, and are more common in public
environments. (e.g. Fehr 2011)
No research looking at the varying effect of
popularity on pro-sociality between public and private
environments.
Experimental Design
Experimental Design
• 231 children ranging from grade 1 to 5 across
5 schools in the district of Treviso in Italy.
• Dictator game with an anonymous kid in
another class or school.
decide out of 4 silly bands, how many to share.
Experimental Design
Public
Jingnan
Dan
Natalia
Marco
…
1
3
0
2
Private
Jingnan
Dan
Natalia
Marco
…
X
X
X
X
Experimental Design
Elicitation of Popularity
Nice Property of Our Elicitation
Method
 Better serves our purpose of eliciting popularity
than “who’s your best friend survey”
 Easier for the children to grasp, ecologically valid.
Something that kids do all the time during their
lunch time - choose who to sit with.
 Seating charts translate easily into popularity
using Borda counts.
Borda Count (BC)
Creating Popularity Index using Borda Count
Construct Popularity Index (PI)
• Rank
, and assign
so on and forth.
,
• Popularity index reflects within-class
popularity in descending order
(the smaller the index, the more popular is
the kid in his/her class).
Results
Result 1
Main popularity effect:
positive popularity effect on sharing, however
only in Public, not in Private.
Main Popularity Effect
Result 2
Main age effect:
positive age effect on sharing, both in Public
and in Private.
Main Age Effect
Result 3
Interaction effect of popularity and age:
positive interaction effect on sharing, only in
Public, not in Private.
Popularity and Age Effect
Conclusion
• Public environments promote pro-sociality only
among popular children
• In private, popular and less popular children display
the same behavior
• Popular children do not seem to be innately more
generous.
• Older children display greater pro-sociality in both
Public and Private treatments.
• Positive interaction effect of popularity and age on
pro-sociality is present in Public but not Private.
Thank you!
Regression Support
Hypotheses
Hypotheses I
Public environments promote prosocial behavior among popular
people to a greater extent than less
popular people, while behavior in
private decision contexts does not
vary with popularity.
Hypotheses I
• Social signaling (Andreoni & Berheim 2009,
Charness et al. 2003)
• Moral wiggle room (Dana et al. 2007)
• Impression management (Barclay & Miller,
2007)
Hypotheses II
• Positive age effect on
pro-sociality
• Older children display
greater generosity,
and this effect is
invariant to Public or
Private settings.
Hypotheses II
• Development of egalitarian preferences
(Fehr et al. 2008).
• Development of theory of mind,
anticipated disapproval from peers
(Houser et al. 2012)
Hypotheses III
• Popularity and age
interaction effect
• Older, more popular
children exhibit
greater level of
sharing only exhibit
in Public, not in
Private
Data Summary
Main Popularity Effect