Generosity, Reputation, and Costly Signaling: A Preliminary Study of Altruism toward Unfamiliar People

Generosity seems to be a cross-culturally ubiquitous feature of life. Helping others is considered as a costly act through which the altruists gain popularity and reputation in their reference group and this elevated reputation will pay off for them in future social relationships. This costly signaling theory has been widely tested in pre-industrial societies. Our purpose was to examine if the assumptions of CST are verifiable in modern, industrial societies. Using a complex experimental procedure with four subsequent phases we could examine reputation-gaining in realistic conditions. We found that more people are willing to offer help to a charity organization when their group mates are aware of their altruistic intention than those whose offer was concealed from the rest of the group. In return, the offered charity service increased the altruist's reputation in the group; in the light of sociometric surveys they gained more popularity than the others. Finally, it turned out that whereas men are more likely to offer potentialhelp in the presence of others, women provide more actualhelp.