The Formation of Prosociality: Causal Evidence on the Role of Social Environment

Kosse, Fabian; Deckers, Thomas; Pinger, Pia; Schildberg-Hoerisch, Hannah und Falk, Armin (2020): The Formation of Prosociality: Causal Evidence on the Role of Social Environment. In: Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 128, No. 2: pp. 434-467

Abstract

This study presents evidence on the role of social environment for the formation of prosociality. We show that socioeconomic status (SES) as well as intensity of mother-child interaction and mothers' prosocial attitudes are related to elementary school children's prosociality. We also present evidence on a randomly assigned variation of the social environment, providing children with a mentor for 1 year. Our data reveal a significant and persistent increase in prosociality in the treatment relative to the control group. Moreover, enriching the social environment closes the prosociality gap between low- and high-SES children. A mediation analysis suggests that prosociality develops in response to prosocial role models and intense social interactions.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Economics
• Subjects: 300 Social sciences > 330 Economics
• ISSN: 0022-3808
• Language: English