Spite and Development

Deliberation Favours Social Efficiency by Making People Disregard Their Relative Shares: Evidence from US and India

“…Regarding differences between countries, we have shown that Indians are in general more likely than Americans to be classified as spiteful and less likely to be classified as socially efficient. These results are consistent with previous research suggesting that India residents are more spiteful (43), less cooperative (42), and less altruistic (61) than US residents. In addition, this observation adds support to the robustness of our main findings since the observed effects (both at the trait and state level) are remarkably similar across countries, regardless of being two societies with seemingly different social preferences at the aggregate level.…”

“…Therefore, we treat the difference on egalitarianism with caution. Regarding spitefulness, in line with Fehr et al (43), we find that residents in India are significantly more spiteful than residents in the US according to the choice-based definition (p<0.01), although not significantly so according to the model-based definition (p=0.33; note that the likelihood of finding a significant difference might have been reduced due to the fact that the model-based definition only classifies 9% of subjects as spiteful).…”

Cultural Identities and Resolution of Social Dilemmas

“…The strength of the Indian caste system can be witnessed even in urban environments in areas such as marital matching (Dugar, Bhattacharya, and Reiley 2012). could personally conduct the experiment. 2 Previous studies have reported caste identity effects on behavior when information on caste is salient (Fehr, Hoff, and Kshetramade 2008;Hoff and Pandey 2006). 3 Even in Kerala, a reportedly progressive Indian state, prominent disparity is found among some low caste groups (Deshpande 2000).…”

Social Preferences and Agricultural Innovation: An Experimental Case Study from Ethiopia

“…Laboratory experiments also show that subjects are willing to harm for little reason or no self-interest (Abbink & Herrmann, 2009. Experiments conducted in India show that spiteful preferences -the desire to reduce another's material payoff for the mere purpose of increasing one's relative payoff -are widespread (Fehr, Hoff, & Kshetramade, 2008).…”