| Abstract: | This research focuses on norms concerning altruistic behavior and how information is used in assessing these norms. The research context was situations involving conflicting norms of self-interest versus altruism. Five categories of information were used: (1) ego's stake in the encounter, (2) relationship between ego and alter, (3) audience to the behavior, (4) legitimacy for self-interest behavior, and (5) alter's cost if ego fails to help him. Sex and SES of respondents were analyzed. The first four categories in addition to sex and SES served as between-subjects variables, each with two levels. Cost-to-alter was within-subjects variable and contained 4 levels. There were 16 groups containing 9 subjects with the same combination of sex and SES characteristics, thus, creating a 2×2×2×2×2×2×9×4 design. Respondents were asked to predict ego's behavior in a situation. Analysis of variance showed that altruism behavior was expected under the following conditions of (1) low cost to ego, (2) close relationship between ego and alter, (3) presence of audience to the encounter, and (4) high cost-to-alter. Females predicted more altruistic responses while SES produced no significant differences in predictions. |
