Younger adults are more prosocial than older adults in economic decision making: results from the give and take game
Résumé
The present study was designed to investigate the disadvantageous and advantageous inequity
aversion of young and older adults in situations which allowed them to maximize or minimize
payoff inequalities. Given the very limited evidence regarding an actual age-related effect on
inequity aversion, the purpose of this study was to examine this question using an economic
game, “the Give-and-Take Game”, which is able to circumvent certain limitations of the Ultimatum
Game, to evaluate inequity aversion (i.e., a same behaviour which can be induced by
opposite motivations: prosocial vs. pro-self vs. altruistic orientations). In the “Give-and-Take
Game”, a sum of money was randomly distributed between the participant and a dummy player.
These distributions created monetary inequalities, advantageous either for the participant (to
examine advantageous inequity aversion) or for the other player (to examine disadvantageous
inequity aversion). Different response options were proposed to the participants to either maximize
or minimize payoff inequalities between the players. This procedure not only allowed to
differentiate individual’s profiles with more prosocial vs. pro-self vs. altruistic orientations, but also
to examine age-related effects on these profiles. The results showed that older adults showed a
more important pro-self orientation compared to their younger counterparts. They more
frequently selected the options which maximized their own payoffs and were less averse to advantageous
inequity compared to young adults. In contrast, young adults showed a similar level
of advantageous and disadvantageous inequity aversion. Older adults focused on the economic
and competitive dimension of the game, which may have motivated them to maximize their own
payoffs. Conversely, young adults took into account the social dimension of the game, focusing on
a fair monetary distribution.
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