The social cost of contacts: Theory and evidence for the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany

Building on the epidemiological SIR model, we present an economic model with heterogeneous individuals deriving utility from social contacts creating infection risks. Focusing on social distancing of individuals susceptible to an infection we theoretically characterize the gap between private and social cost of contacts. Our main contribution is to quantify this gap by calibrating the model with unique survey data from Germany on social distancing and impure altruism from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The optimal policy is to drastically reduce contacts at the beginning to almost eradicate the epidemic and keep them at levels that contain the pandemic at a low prevalence level. We find that also in laissez faire, private protection efforts by forward-looking, risk averse individuals would have stabilized the epidemic, but at a much higher prevalence of infection than optimal. Altruistic motives increase individual protection efforts, but a substantial gap to the social optimum remains.

Understanding Content Contribution Behavior in a Geosegmented Mobile Virtual Community: The Context of Waze

The virtualization of every aspect of our life does not mean that old ways of social interaction can now be transported to the internet. According to recent research conducted on the influence of mobile apps, we also need to look at how digital spaces enable interactions among individuals. We use large-scale geospatial data analysis to study millions of postings in an app called Waze. We conceptualize a novel factor called virtual crowdedness, which is the density of usage of the app in a specific neighborhood. We find that displaying the density of a user’s “virtual activities” can both encourage and discourage participation by the entire community. We find that participation in virtual settings is akin to what economists describe as a public good, where only a few individuals contribute but create well-being for the entire community. Users’ motivation to participate in virtual settings depends on what is termed “impure altruism” by economists, where participation is heavily influenced by motives of prestige and public recognition. These motivations are reinforced through intensive social interactions among members of such communities. We also find there is a strong bystander effect in these virtual communities. The bystander effect refers to the phenomenon in which an individual’s likelihood of engaging in a helpful act decreases when bystanders are present in a critical situation.

ALTRUISM AND MORAL ENHANCEMENT

ABSTRACT In this article I will be discussing what altruism is, distinguishing altruistic motivations (pure and impure) and altruistic behaviour (soft and robust). Pure altruism is when the motivation to benefit another is exclusively to increase the other's welfare, and impure altruism is when the motivation to benefit another is solely to increase your own wellbeing, or includes on some level, increasing your own welfare. Soft altruism is helping behaviour and robust altruism is improving the welfare of another individual at the expense of the altruist. Having made these distinctions I move on to show that altruism is a requirement of morality. I argue that the three main principles of morality (categorical imperative, golden rule and the greatest happiness principle) are not only compatible with, but also recommend soft altruism. Finally I argue that the probability of people continuing to practise altruistic acts is higher when we are purely motivated, and if that is the case not only classic moral enhancement but also biotechnological moral enhancement can have a role in bringing people over to the altruistic side, stimulating their ‘other regarding ’ motivations, thus contributing to spreading altruistic behaviour and morality throughout the world.

Knowing the Blood Nondonor to Activate Behaviour

This work is aimed at further developing the study of blood nondonor behaviour through a joint analysis of sociodemographic characteristics, psychological and physical barriers, impure altruism and anticipated emotions, as predictors of intention to donate. To that end, a step-by-step hierarchical regression analysis was applied on a sample of 2383 Spanish nondonors. The study’s results confirm the influence of traditional variables (sociodemographic characteristics, psychological and physical barriers and impure altruism), as well as the power of anticipated emotions, both positive and negative, of donation action and inaction as variables explaining the intention to donate. Another important contribution has been to develop the moderating role of psychological and physical barriers, in addition to impure altruism, on cause–effect relationships between anticipated emotions and intention to donate. A number of practical implications can be derived from this study for transfusion centres responsible for donation promotion.

Doing Good Better: Impure Altruism in Green Apparel Advertising

In this study, we identify impure altruism as a duality of altruistic and egoistic warmth. We examine how these feelings motivate consumers to buy green apparel in response to advertisements. We test the effectiveness of the message orientation and its interactivity with a beneficiary and propose modeling impure altruism as the reason why consumers purchase green apparel. The study uses a quasi-experiment to estimate a comparison effect among advertising stimuli. We conduct an online survey among US consumers that garnered 586 responses for the main data analysis. The results indicate that egocentric appeals increase perceived uniqueness and that human beneficiary appeals lead to higher communal harmony. The findings show that communal harmony and global wellbeing prompt altruistic warmth and that uniqueness and product quality encourage egoistic warmth. Notably, altruistic warmth contributes to egoistic warmth, which indicates the existence of impurely altruistic consumers. Both altruistic and egoistic warmth lead to the intention of purchasing green apparel. We recommend “feel-good” marketing strategies to publicize the benefits of a sustainable lifestyle. The study contributes to the theoretical development of sustainability and can serve as an extension of a discrete model of altruism and egoism on consumers’ sustainable behavior.

No Substitute for the Real Thing: The Importance of In-Context Field Experiments In Fundraising.

We present a complete empirical case study of fundraising campaign decisions that demonstratesthe importance of in-context field experiments. We first design novel matching-basedfundraising appeals. We derive theory-based predictions from the standard impure altruismmodel and solicit expert opinion about the potential performance of our interventions. Boththeory-based prediction and descriptive advice suggest improved fundraising performance from aframing intervention that credited donors for the matched funds (compared to a typical matchframing). However, results from a natural field experiment with prior donors of a non-profitshowed significantly poorer performance of this framing compared to a regularly framedmatching intervention. This surprising finding was confirmed in a second natural fieldexperiment, to establish the ground truth. Theoretically, our results highlight the limitations ofboth impure altruism models and of expert opinion in predicting complex “warm glow”motivation. More practically, our results question the availability of useful guidance, andsuggest the indispensability of field testing for interventions in fundraising.

Citizenship Status, Warm Glow, and Prosocial Behavior: A Quasi-Experiment on Giving Behavior by Host-Country Citizens and Asylum Seekers

This paper is concerned with the question of whether and how social class and status affect prosocial behavior among status groups.We conducted dictator games in which both host-country citizens (high social status) as well as asylum seekers (low social status) make monetary donations towards their respective in- and out-groups. As a novelty, we varied the number of recipients in the dictator game (i.e. one, two or three recipients). Our results indicate that host-country citizens donate significantly more than asylum seekers and that asylum seekers receive significantly higher donations than host-country citizens. Donations vary only marginally with the number of recipients. These findings and answers to a follow-up questionnaire show that prosocial behavior among status groups, and in particular prosocial behavior from high-status towards low-status actors, might be instances of impure altruism, i.e., motivated by a warm glow of giving or a purchase of moral satisfaction.