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RE: Is Human Cooperation Innate Or Learned? En Essay, Part 1
I always read your posts because I always learn something. Good blog. I wonder if some of the effects on altruism are from the perceived value of stickers. A few stickers are something of value to a young lower socioeconomic status child. I wonder if that value is perceived the same as the child gets older or if the child is from a higher socioeconomic status? Maybe kids give away more stickers when they are perceived to be of less value? Just thinking out loud...
Indeed, depending on the socioeconomic status of a child, the perceived value of a sticker might change. The experimenters made sure that the stickers represented an asset with same scarcity in both higher and lower SES schools. In other words, stickers were equally commonly given to students in both schools. Furthermore, this stickers were brought from another country therefore, they would be equally rare for all children. With these two conditions, the experimenters tried to control for the perceived value of the stickers.