Seemingly altruistic behavior and strategic ignorance in a dictator game with potential loss
Keisuke Yamamoto, Hirofumi Hashimoto · 2025
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Description
Keisuke Yamamoto and Hirofumi Hashimoto test whether not knowing helps people stay generous, in a 2025 web experiment. In the dictator game, one player splits a sum and may simply avoid learning how much the other side needs. Past work found that the chance to stay ignorant cuts giving.
The pair reshaped the game so the other player faces a loss, a setup meant to stir empathy. Two hundred Japanese adults played online. The loss twist changed nothing: giving and strategic ignorance ran at their usual rates. Even told of the other's loss, players used ignorance as cover to give less, as if it excused them.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Keisuke Yamamoto, Hirofumi Hashimoto |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2025 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 34 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |