Analysis of altruism through the Public Good Game

Abstract

Literature picks up different ways to estimate altruism and altruistic behavior in the context of the Public Good Game. The objective of this essay is comparing various methodologies and procedures used for evaluating the altruistic behavior. In this dissertation, a questionnaire is carried out for contrasting two methodologies used for testing altruistic behavior. The first procedure is based on Kurzban and Houser (2005) and the second one, developed from an idea considered in Alexander and Fotini (2011). Results present that the second methodology is more permissive than the first one. Moreover, results show that gender has not an effect in how altruistic a subject is. Behavior of subjects with postgraduate level of studies is less altruistic than behavior of subjects with lower level of education. Finally, results show that subjects classified as cooperators often have altruistic motivations in their behavior.