Do Birds of a Feather Flock Together: -An experimental study of the effect of similarity and dissimilarity of political values on generosity

Abstract: Altruism or generosity is common in everyday life, but frequently overlooked in traditional economic theory. Moreover, favorable treatment constitutes a poorly understood aspect of generosity. We conduct a dictator game to test for the effects of homogeneous versus heterogeneous preferences in terms of political views on generosity. The dictator game is conducted with participants from Swedish upper secondary schools. The game is modified in the sense that subjects report their political preferences and receive the corresponding information about their anonymous recipient. The results indicate greater generosity among dictators paired with recipients with similar political values compared to when coupled with a subject holding dissimilar values. We conclude that people tend to favor those who are similar to themselves, but also that the decision is impacted by factors such as political view and parental education.