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Selflessness takes time: altruistic (but not cooperative) prosocial behavior increases with decision time

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Selflessness takes time: altruistic (but not cooperative) prosocial behavior increases with decision time

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Content Running head: SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 1

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME: ALTRUISTIC (BUT NOT COOPERATIVE) PROSOCIAL
BEHAVIOR INCREASES WITH DECISION TIME

BY
Peter W. Meindl

___________________________________________________

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(PSYCHOLOGY)
August 2016

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 2

Table of Contents
Page
Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... 6
Abstract…. ....................................................................................................................... 7
Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 8
Background ........................................................................................................... 10
Overview of Studies ............................................................................................. 19
Study 1: A Meta-Analysis of Non-Contingent Studies.................................................. 20
Method .................................................................................................................. 20
Table 1 .................................................................................................................. 21
Results ................................................................................................................... 22
Study 2: Experimentally Manipulating Decision Time ................................................. 23
Pretest Method ...................................................................................................... 23
Pretest Results ....................................................................................................... 25
Study 2 Method ..................................................................................................... 26
Results ................................................................................................................... 27
Figure 1 ................................................................................................................. 28

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 3

Study 3: Ruling Out a Potential Confound .................................................................... 28
Method .................................................................................................................. 29
Results ................................................................................................................... 29
Figure 2 ................................................................................................................. 30
Study 4: The Effect of Decision Time on Contingent and Non-Contingent Prosociality ........ 30
Method .................................................................................................................. 31
Table 2 .................................................................................................................. 33
Results ................................................................................................................... 34
Figure 3 ................................................................................................................. 35
Study 5: Measuring Behavior Using Public Goods Games ........................................... 35
Method .................................................................................................................. 36
Results ................................................................................................................... 38
Figure 4 ................................................................................................................. 39
Figure 5 ................................................................................................................. 39
Study 6: Testing the Validity of Prosociality Measures ................................................ 40
Method .................................................................................................................. 40
Results ................................................................................................................... 41
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Study 7: Experimentally Manipulating the Contingency of Prosocial Behavior ........... 42
Method .................................................................................................................. 43
Results ................................................................................................................... 44
Figure 6 ................................................................................................................. 45
Study 8: Testing Why Decision Time Increases Non-Contingent Prosociality ............. 45
Method – Study 8a ................................................................................................ 46
Results ................................................................................................................... 46
Method – Study 8b ................................................................................................ 47
Results ................................................................................................................... 50
Figure 7 ................................................................................................................. 52
Study 9: Meta-Analyses Using Data from Studies 1-8 ................................................. 52
Results and Discussion ......................................................................................... 53
General Discussion ........................................................................................................ 55
Implications........................................................................................................... 57
Future Directions .................................................................................................. 61
Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 62
References ..................................................................................................................... 63
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Appendix A: Dependent Variable for Studies 1a-c, e, and f ......................................... 72
Appendix B: Dependent Variable for Study 1d ............................................................. 73
Appendix C: Study 2 Pretest Materials .......................................................................... 74
Appendix D: Study Materials for Study 2 and Study 3 ................................................. 91
Appendix E: Study 4 Materials ...................................................................................... 97
Appendix F: Study 5 Materials .................................................................................... 103
Appendix G: Study 6 Materials ................................................................................... 109
Appendix H: Study 8b Materials ................................................................................. 119

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 6

Acknowledgements
Thank you Jacci for five years of awesome support. Thank you Jesse, Daphna, and John
for their many kind words and encouragement that helped me stay motivated through a long
season of rejections, and thank you to the editors and reviewers whose feedback helped make
this paper better. Finally, thank you to my dissertation committee and all of the social
psychology faculty for the time they have committed to investing in my growth as a researcher.

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 7

Abstract
Are people spontaneously selfless or self-serving? A prominent model of prosociality – the
Social Heuristics Hypothesis (SHH) – suggests people are impulsively selfless, and with time
people’s behavior becomes more self-interested. This model appears to be supported by findings
that the less time people take to decide how to act in cooperation games, the more money they
give to others. Presumably, this pattern exists because people internalize the generally positive
consequences of everyday cooperation, thus automatizing prosociality. However, unlike non-
altruistic, or “contingent” prosociality (other-benefiting behavior with considerable positive
consequences to oneself), altruism, or “non-contingent” prosociality (other-benefiting behavior
that is costly but bears no direct profit to oneself) should not become automatized, given that
such behavior is unlikely to have clear and immediate self-interested consequences. With this in
mind, here I propose a model of decision time and prosocial behavior which suggests that though
some forms of prosocial behavior might decrease as a function of decision time, decision time
should increase non-contingent behavior. I also propose that time manipulations influence non-
contingent prosociality due to their impact on moral motivation. These hypotheses were
supported by two meta-analyses and seven experiments including multiple manipulations of time
pressure and task structure (N = 9,332, Mdn = 426). Overall, these studies indicate that though
contingent prosociality does not increase with time, multiple forms of non-contingent
prosociality do, specifically because with decision time comes increased moral motivation.
These studies suggest necessary revisions to the SHH, as 17 of the 18 key analyses conducted in
this paper ran counter to it.
Keywords: prosocial behavior, cooperation, decision making, decision time, motivation

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 8

Introduction
In the spring of 1912, the Titanic sank, resulting in the loss of 1,517 lives. Three springs
later, the sinking of the Lusitania resulted in similar losses. These two tragedies had much in
common – comparable shortages of lifeboats, comparable survival rates, similar ratios between
crew members and passengers, similar sociodemographic and socioeconomic composition
among passengers, and, given their proximity to each other in time, similar historical cultural
norms (Frey, Savage, & Torgler, 2010). Yet when tragedy struck, the passengers on these two
ships differed markedly in the degree to which they acted selfishly or altruistically, with
passengers on the Lusitania demonstrating higher levels of selfish behavior (i.e., behavior rooted
in a person’s own self-interest). One possible explanation for this difference has to do with the
amount of time passengers on the two ships had to decide how to act; whereas the Lusitania sunk
in less than 20 minutes, the Titanic took nearly three hours to submerge (Frey, Savage, &
Torgler, 2010).
Though fascination with altruistic, or non-contingent prosocial behavior (i.e., “other-
benefiting behavior that is costly but bears no direct profit to oneself”; Kinnunen & Windmann,
2013) has spawned tens of thousands of scholarly and literary works, whether non-contingent
prosociality arises quickly, or whether instead it requires the recruitment of slower, higher-order
neurocognitive processes remains an open question. This topic may hold important keys to the
development of a comprehensive theory of cooperation (Bear & Rand, 2016; Bowles & Gintis,
2011; Lohse, Goeschl, & Diederich, 2014). It is also a topic that has the potential to explain
much of everyday behavior (Gachter, 2012; Nielsen, Tyran, & Wengström, 2013), and perhaps
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 9

even behavior in extreme situations, as the historical records of the Lusitania and the Titanic
suggest.
Though some research indicates that people are impulsively prosocial (i.e., they perform
actions that are in more than just their own self-interest; Cappelletti, Goth, & Ploner, 2011; Cone
& Rand, 2014; Kieslich & Hilbig, 2014; Lotito, Migheli, & Ortona, 2013; Nielsen, Tyran, &
Wengström, 2014; Rand et al., 2014; Rand, Greene, & Nowak, 2012; Rand & Kraft-Todd, 2014;
Rand, Newman, & Wurzbacher, 2014; Schulz, Fischbache, Thöni, & Utikal, 2012; Uziel &
Hefetz, 2014), other work suggests this is not the case (Kessler & Meier, 2014; Tinghög et al.,
2013; Verkoeijen & Bouwmeester, 2014). In fact, a considerable amount of research suggests
that the opposite is true and that relatively slow cognitive processes increase prosocial behavior
(Aguilar-Pardo, Martínez-Arias, & Colmenares, 2013; DeWall, Baumeister, Gailliot, & Maner,
2008; Fiedler, Glöckner, Nicklisch, & Dickert, 2013; Martinsson, Myrseth, & Wollbrant, 2012;
Piovesan & Wengstrom, 2009). The purpose of this paper is to help bring clarity to this
increasingly cacophonous literature by investigating when prosocial behavior takes time to arise
(and why) and when it does not. Here I propose that although the type of non-altruistic - or
“contingent” - prosociality that is typically measured in economic games may decline with
decision time (Rand et al., 2014; Rand, Greene, & Nowak, 2012), non-contingent prosociality
increases with time. In this paper, I directly investigate for the first time whether decision time
affects non-contingent prosociality differently than contingent prosocial behavior.
I also test why non-contingent prosociality often increases with time. Specifically, I test
whether non-contingent prosociality increases with time due to concomitant shifts in motives that
support non-contingent prosociality. Specifically, I test whether non-contingent motives increase
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 10

and/or selfish motives decrease with time, and whether this change in moral motives accounts for
changes in non-contingent prosociality.
Finally, throughout this paper, I compare my results to recent influential findings in the
psychology and economics literature, and I discuss the implications of my findings for the
preeminent dual-process model of prosociality – the social heuristics hypothesis (SHH; Rand et
al., 2014; Rand, Greene, & Nowak, 2012; Rand & Nowak, 2013). In short, nearly all of my
findings run contrary to central and subsidiary predictions of - and past findings related to - the
SHH. Consequently, my findings call into question the robustness of the current iteration of this
influential model of prosociality.
Background
Scholars have long held conflicting views about whether human impulse is relatively
selfish or selfless. At least as far back as the early Epicureans, some scholars have posited that
morality was largely the product of “fast,” intuitive, System 1 cognitive processes

(Haidt, 2001;
Hume, 1738/2012; Mikhail, 2007; Rashdall, 1914; Sunstein, 2005). A recent wave of
psychological studies has provided empirical support for an intuitive basis of moral judgment

(Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001; Koenigs, Young, Adolphs, Tranel,
Cushman, et al., 2007; Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2006; Wheatley & Haidt, 2005; though also see
Moore & Tenbrunsel, 2013 for a more nuanced take on the topic), and recent work suggests that
the same might be true for moral behavior: when people make impulsive choices in cooperative
economic games (almost exclusively Prisoner’s Dilemma Games and Public Goods Games) they
give more to others, but the more they think about how to act, the more self-interest overwhelms
this flash of prosociality

(Cappelletti, Güth, & Ploner, 2011; Cone & Rand, 2014; Cornelissen,
Dewitte, & Warlop 2011; Kieslich & Hilbig, 2014; Kinnunen & Windmann, 2013; Lotito,
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 11

Migheli, & Ortona, 2013; Nielsen, Tyran, & Wengström, 2014; Rand et al., 2014; Rand, Greene,
& Nowak, 2012; Rand & Kraft-Todd, 2014; Rand, Newman, & Wurzbacher, 2014; Rubinstein,
2007; Ruff, Ugazio, & Fehr, 2013; Schulz, Fischbache, Thöni, & Utikal, 2012; Uziel & Hefetz,
2014).
According to the Social Heuristics Hypothesis (SHH; Rand et al., 2012; 2014), this
relationship between decision time and prosocial behavior exists because in ordinary life it is
usually advantageous to act prosocially, and as a result this causes an automatic prosocial
heuristic to develop. However, the SHH also “contends that people often have two competing
sets of preferences,” one fast and one slow, and that in cooperative situations, when slower
cognitive processes come online they cause people “to shift their behavior towards the behavior
that is most advantageous [to them] in context” (Rand et al., 2014, p. 2). Consequently, prosocial
intentions peak early in the decision-making process before being partially suppressed, perhaps
by motivated moral reasoning (Bandura et al., 1999; Gino & Ariely 2012; Kunda, 1990).
It appears that as a result, one of the most celebrated human qualities – sacrificial
altruism – is undermined by one of the most celebrated human skills – calculated reasoning.
More specific to the topic of the current paper, this research appears to indicate that there exists a
spontaneous selflessness effect – that is, people are impulsively selfless, but with time they
become more selfish (Rand et al., 2012; 2014; Rand & Epstein, 2014).
Evidence of a Positive Effect of Decision Time on Prosociality
This work is in conflict, however, with thousands of years of scholarly work suggesting
that prosociality arises slowly. From Plato (1955) to Kohlberg (1976), philosophers and scientists
offered theories of morality that intimated that self-interest is quick and intuitive, and good
conduct increases with time. In the words of two recent scholars, whereas self-interest is
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 12

“automatic, viscerally compelling, and often unconscious,” behavior that runs counter to self-
interest stems from “a more thoughtful process” (Moore & Loewenstein, 2004). And even more
recently, a long list of studies have indicated that “slow” cognitive processes either do not
influence selfishness (Hauge et al., 2014; Kessler & Meier, 2014; Rand et al., 2016; Tinghög et
al., 2013; Verkoeijen & Bouwmeester, 2014) or actually reduce selfish behavior (Aguilar-Pardo,
Martínez-Arias, & Colmenares, 2013; DeWall, Baumeister, Gailliot, & Maner, 2008; Duffy &
Smith, 2014; Fiedler, Glöckner, Nicklisch, & Dickert, 2013; Knoch et al., 2006; Kocher,
Martinsson, Myrseth, & Wollbrandt, 2012; Lohse, Goeschl, & Diederich, 2014; Martinsson,
Myrseth, & Wollbrant, 2012; Piovesan & Wengström, 2009; Strang, Gross, Schuhmann, Riedl,
Weber, & Sack, 2014). In fact, even the creators of the SHH acknowledge that they sometimes
do not find support for their original findings (Rand et al., Evans, Dillon, & Rand, 2015).
Automatic Selfishness
There are many reasons why contradicting findings on this topic might exist, but one
possibility is that the effect of decision time differs across different types of prosocial behaviors.
As posited by the SHH (Rand et al., 2012; 2014), experiences may teach people that it is in their
self-interest to act prosocially, and with time this information might become automatic, thus
causing people to spontaneously help or give. However, there are numerous types of cooperative
and prosocial situations (McKay & Whitehouse, 2015). Though these may all be nominally
similar (e.g., in all situations one or more people are deciding how to distribute resources
between themselves and another person), their characteristics often diverge in psychologically
important ways. Perhaps most importantly, prosocial situations may differ in the perceived
consequences of cooperation or noncooperation (e.g., large vs. small, zero sum vs. non-zero sum,
self-benefiting or not self-benefiting).
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 13

Given the important role (relative to nominal situational features) that psychological
situational features play in psychological phenomena (Mischel & Shoda, 1995; Shoda, Mischel,
& Wright, 1994), it stands to reason that when and which behaviors are automatized will largely
depend on the psychological situational features present (e.g., “what are the consequences of this
behavior for me and for others?”) rather than simply the nominal features (e.g., “is there money
that I can divide between me and others?”). In other words, automaticity as a consequence of
internalization should be situationally dependent. And indeed, research indicates that
automatized behavior is highly context specific. For instance, whereas people habitually eat
popcorn when they are in the context in which their popcorn eating habit was formed (e.g., while
watching a movie in a movie theatre), in other contexts (e.g., while watching a movie in a
conference room) their popcorn eating behavior is indistinguishable from people without this
habit (Neal, Wood, Wu, & Kurlander, 2011).
Non-Contingent Prosociality is Special
Two prosocial contexts that have disparate consequences and thus seem especially likely
to foster divergent internalized rules are contexts that allow for non-contingent prosociality
(prosocial behavior not contingent on the hope or expectation of reward) and contingent
prosocial behavior (prosocial behavior fueled partly by the desire to obtain a reward). Sometimes
giving is driven by mainly altruistic motives (e.g., generously tipping in a town you’ll never
return to), and other times giving is driven by more of a mixture of altruistic and self-interested
motives (e.g., generously tipping in your favorite restaurant).
Though experience may teach people that while giving in contingent prosocial situations
is in their self-interest, it may also teach people that giving in non-contingent situations is not. In
non-contingent situations, a rule to act prosocially should not be internalized. Instead, in this
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 14

situation it would be more adaptive to internalize the rule to not act prosocially, and thus self-
interested behavior should be people’s default, impulsive response.
Cooperation contra Altruism in Economic Games
Some support for the possibility that contingent, but not non-contingent, prosociality is
impulsive comes from research on identity fusion. Identity fusion is a state in which personal and
group identity are functionally equivalent (Swann et al., 2009; Swann et al., 2012). A person who
feels “fused” with a social group feels that they and their group are one in the same - that they
are their group, and that their group is them - and so anything that is in the interest of their group
is also in their own interest (Swann et al., 2009). In line with the current hypothesis, time
pressure increases willingness to sacrifice one’s life for one’s country among people who feel
“fused” to their country – that is, people who appear to believe that their own self-interest is
synonymous with what is in their country’s interest – but among people who do not believe that
sacrificing one’s life for one’s country could have a positive effect on their “selves” (i.e., their
groups), this effect is reversed (Swann et al., 2014).
The idea that prosociality is more intuitive when it is perceived to be in one’s self-interest
is also supported by the fact that studies suggesting a negative effect of time on prosociality very
often assess prosocial behaviors that participants may perceive to be in their self-interest. Though
the economic games typically used in these studies (primarily Public Goods Games and
Prisoner’s Dilemma Games) might assess selfless giving in some participants, it is likely that for
many participants, decisions to perform the “prosocial behavior” (i.e., cooperate) are based on
the misunderstanding that it is in their self-interest to cooperate. Consequently, for these
participants, cooperation cannot be considered a selfless behavior.
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 15

For instance, there is evidence that when playing Public Goods Games, a sizeable number
of participants decide to cooperate (i.e., put money into the community pot) because they
incorrectly believe that it is in their self-interest to cooperate (Ferraro & Vossler, 2005). If this is
the case, cooperation in this situation might simply be a (misguided) selfish behavior.
There is reason to believe the same type of misunderstanding influences decision-making
in Prisoner’s Dilemma Games. Due to the typical payout structure of a one shot Prisoner’s
Dilemma Game, the Nash equilibrium (i.e., the decision that is in most in line with both
participants’ self-interest if they are taking into account the decision-making of the other
participant) is to always defect (Nash, 1950). In other words, in a one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma
Game the most rationally self-interested decision for any participant is to not cooperate. This is
because no matter what an actor’s partner chooses, the actor is better off choosing to defect than
to cooperate. However, due to the complexity of the game this is likely to be initially unclear to
many – if not most – Prisoner’s Dilemma Game novices.
Most importantly, the more a person thinks deeply about the structure of these games, the
more likely it is that they will realize that cooperation generally goes against their self-interest,
which should then cause people to be less likely to cooperate. Consequently, cooperation in these
games might appear to be influenced by decision time simply because with time people become
more aware of what is in their self-interest. In other words, cooperation might decrease even
though selfishness does not increase. Comprehension questions might help weed out some
initially misguided participants, but given the complexity of Prisoner’s Dilemma and Public
Goods games, novice participants who complete comprehension questions are still unlikely to
fully grasp the consequences of their actions in this type of game, and taking additional time to
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 16

make a decision is likely to result in an increased understanding of the positive personal
consequences of non-cooperation.
Therefore, while the results of past studies suggest that more decision time leads to less
cooperation in traditional Public Goods Games and Prisoner’s Dilemma Games, it does not
follow that in general “intuition preferentially supports prosocial behaviour” (Rand, Greene, &
Nowak, 2012, p.427). This might only be true, or be especially true, when prosociality is partly
self-interested. What effect decision time has on non-contingent prosocial behavior remains an
open question.
Why Non-Contingent Prosociality Takes Time
Decision time might affect non-contingent prosociality differently than contingent
prosocial behavior, but why might decision time specifically increase non-contingent behavior?
One possibility – supported by recent work on the correlation between decision time and
prosocial behavior – is that with time, absolute levels of conflict between one’s altruistic and
selfish motives are reduced (i.e., the absolute difference between altruistic and selfish motives
increases), and at least when this conflict is resolved in the direction of altruism, altruism, or
non-contingent prosociality, eventually prevails (Evans, Dillon, & Rand, 2015; Krajbich,
Bartling, Hare, & Fehr, 2015). That said, research has not yet tested the implications of this work
for the effect of manipulations of decision time on prosocial behavior, and it has been suggested
that in prosocial situations, this type of decision conflict may simply result in increased decision
time; in other words, increases in decision time may not directly contribute to reduced conflict
(Krajbich, Bartling, Hare, & Fehr, 2015). If this is the case, any influence that decision time
manipulations have on non-contingent prosociality would be unlikely to be accounted for by this
conflict resolution mechanism. Furthermore, if perceived conflict accounted for the effect of
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 17

decision time on people’s prosocial decisions, this would suggest that decision time should only
increase non-contingent prosociality under specific conditions (Krajbich, Bartling, Hare, & Fehr,
2015). Namely, as has been shown in studies on the correlation between decision time and
prosociality, on this account non-contingent prosocial behavior should only arise with time when
there is initially a considerable amount of conflict between altruistic and selfish motives (i.e.,
there is little absolute difference).
A related alternate possibility is that with time, altruistic motives increase relative to
selfish motives, thus resulting in a general shift away from people’s relatively selfish default
towards more non-contingent prosocial behavior. Whereas the conflict account suggests that
changes in absolute differences between altruistic and selfish motives (i.e., changes in conflict)
across time should translate into effects of decision time on non-contingent prosociality, the
moral motives account does not require any change in absolute levels of conflict. Instead, a
moral motives account calls for relative shifts between altruistic and selfish motives. So, for
instance, imagine in a hypothetical study the average level of altruistic motivation under time
pressure reached a 4.7 on a 7-point scale, and average egoism scores reached a 6. Also imagine
that in a non-pressured condition, altruistic motivation increased to a 6.3 and egoism reduced to a
5. On the moral motives account, this could result in an increase in non-contingent prosocial
behavior (because altruistic motives have increased relative to selfish motives), but on the
conflict account a change in behavior should not occur, because the absolute level of conflict
between these two motives is exactly the same across conditions (in both conditions the absolute
difference, or conflict, between motives is 1.3). To the best of my knowledge, the possibility that
manipulations of decision time affect moral motives has not previously been investigated, but for
the claim that decision time increases non-contingent prosociality or decreases selfishness to be
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 18

accurate, these motives should change with time and should account for concomitant shifts in
non-contingent prosocial behavior across time.
The difference between this “moral motives” hypothesis and the conflict hypothesis is
subtle but important for at least three reasons. First, because altruism implies altruistic intent, if
moral motives do not increase with time, and if this does not account for changes in non-
contingent prosocial behavior, it could be claimed that decision time does not increase altruism,
per se. However, to my knowledge, the effect of decision time on moral motives has not yet been
investigated.
Second, if the moral motives account is correct, decision time is likely to increase non-
contingent prosociality in many circumstances, provided moral motives generally increase with
time. On the other hand, if the conflict account is correct, it would indicate that decision time
should sometimes increase non-contingent prosociality, but very often (e.g., when there is little
conflict between altruistic and selfish motives) non-contingent prosociality would not increase
with time. Though here I am not claiming that decision time should always increase non-
contingent prosociality (and indeed, recent correlational studies suggest that sometimes
sacrificial behavior may not increase with decision time; Krajbich, Bartling, Hare, & Fehr, 2015;
Rand et al., 2016) I do expect that contrary to the effect of decision time on contingent prosocial
behavior, non-contingent prosociality often does increase on account of decision time; thus the
moral motives account appears to be more in line with my primary hypothesis than the conflict
account.
Third, though neither account would fully support the SHH, if the moral motives account
were correct, this would run more strongly counter to the SHH. According to its creators, “[t]he
SHH contends that people often have two competing sets of preferences” with self-interested
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 19

preferences being supported by fast and automatic cognitive processes, and other-interested
preferences being supported by slower cognitive processes (Rand et al., 2014). If moral motives
increase with time, this would explicitly contradict the SHH’s general claim that slower
cognitive processes encourage self-interested preferences.
Overview of Studies
Here I test a new model of the effect of decision time on prosociality – as well as its
implications for the SHH – in a meta-analysis of pre-existing studies, seven original studies, and
a meta-analysis of the results of these studies. In a preliminary meta-analysis and six studies, I
test the hypothesis that although contingent prosocial behavior (i.e., prosocial behavior perceived
to lead to a self-interested outcome) does not increase with decision time, non-contingent
prosocial behavior often does increase as a function of decision time. Studies 1a-1f test the
direction of the basic relationship between non-contingent prosociality (non-contingent giving)
and decision time. Studies 2 and 3 test how manipulating decision time impacts non-contingent
giving. Studies 4 and 5 manipulate task structure (contingent/non-altruistic vs. non-
contingent/altruistic) to test the effects of decision time on non-contingent versus contingent
giving. In Study 6 I further test the validity of my non-contingent and contingent giving tasks by
assessing the degree to which people consider giving to be selfish or altruistic in these different
tasks. Next, in Study 7, I compare the effect of decision time on non-contingent versus
contingent helpfulness in an attempt to rule out potential confounds in Studies 4 and 5. In Study
8, I test whether decision time’s influence on non-contingent prosociality can be accounted for
by shifts in absolute levels of decisional conflict, or whether instead its effect stems from
increases in moral motivation – that is, increases in concern for others relative to concern for
oneself. Finally, in Study 9, I conduct a meta-analysis of Studies 1-8 to further test the
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 20

hypothesis that decision time and type of prosocial behavior (contingent vs. non-contingent)
interact to predict behavior, and also to test an additional hypothesis derived from the SHH: that
altruism is intuitive for women but not for men. No deception was used in any of the studies;
where applicable, participants actually played for real money and/or completed actual volunteer
work. For all studies, we report how we determined our sample size, all data exclusions (if any),
all manipulations, and all measures.
Study 1: A Meta-Analysis of Non-Contingent Studies
Again, though some previous work suggests that non-contingent prosociality increases
with time, other research suggests this is not the case. To test whether non-contingent
prosociality often (though perhaps not always) increases with time, I analyzed data from every
study I had previously conducted that included measures of: (a) people’s willingness to
anonymously give away real money (with no hope or expectation of getting anything in return)
and (b) the length of time people took to decide how much money they were willing to give
away. Six studies met these criteria, and their aggregate results were meta-analyzed. None of
these studies were intended to assess the relationship between decision-time and non-contingent
prosociality, and thus it seems reasonable that they could serve as an unbiased assessment of
whether non-contingent prosociality tends to take time to arise.
Method
Participants. In total, data from 489 participants included valid information on giving
and decision time (Study 1a: n = 84; Study 1b: n = 101; Study 1c: n = 96; Study 1d: n = 79;
Study 1e: n = 31; Study 1f: n = 98). Participants’ average age was 30.88 (Study 1a: M = 28.42;
Study 1b: M = 33.12; Study 1c: M = 29.90; Study 1d: M = 31.91; Study 1e: M = 27.81; Study 1f:
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 21

M = 31.75), and 53% of participants were male (Study 1a: 53.57%; Study 1b: 49.51%; Study 1c:
58.94%; Study 1d: 47.30%; Study 1e: 64.52%; Study 1f: 50%).
All participants in these studies, and most participants in subsequently reports studies,
were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (AMT). There is little reason to believe that
MTurk sampling reduces the generalizability of the current research. Research suggests that data
derived from AMT participants is comparable to data collected from “offline” participants (Amir
& Rand, 2012; Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling, 2011; Paolacci, Chandler, & Ipeirotis, 2010;
Rand et al, 2014; Rand, Greene, & Nowak, 2012). In fact, MTurk has been shown to provide a
more diverse sample than other common samples used by psychologists (Paolacci & Chandler,
2014). Furthermore, past research on the current topic has consistently shown that results on this
topic are the same regardless of whether samples are gathered online or offline (Rand et al.,
2016; Rand, Greene, & Nowak, 2012).
Study n Manipulation

1a 84 Prior to making decision, Ps in experimental condition rated morality of keeping money.
Control condition Ps only made giving decision. See Appendix A in online
supplement
1
(or below) for more details.

1b 101 Same as 1a.

1c 96 Ps in “self” condition rated morality of themselves keeping money. Ps in “other”
condition rated morality of other people keeping money.

1d 79 Ps in “temptation” condition shown picture of a 50 dollar bill, imagined they were given
$50, and were told to imagine spending it on self. See Appendix B for more details.

1e 31 Same as 1a and 1b, except neutral Ps wrote about weather.

1f 98 Same as 1d, except “temptation” Ps answered the question, “Why do you think money
brings people enjoyment?”

Table 1. Individual information for studies 1a-1f.

Procedure. Though the studies’ methods varied, all participants received $0.25 for
agreeing to participate and were given a random chance to win $50, and before they were told
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 22

whether they won the money they were given the option of keeping all of the money or giving
some (or all) of their winnings to a charity of their choice (see Table 1 and online supplement
1

for more information).
Results
In this and all subsequent studies, if an IP address was recorded more than once, only the
first set of data associated with that IP address was included in analyses. Data associated with
repeat IP addresses were discarded in order to reduce the effect of people completing the study
multiple times. In the current study, 23 cases were deleted for this reason, leaving a total N of
466. Also, because decision time in this and every other study reported in this paper was
positively skewed, the decision time data for all studies was log10 transformed.
Three meta-analyses were performed on the data from Studies 1a through 1f: in one, the
conditions in each study were combined (six aggregated effect sizes); in one, the conditions were
separated (12 effect sizes); and in one, only data from neutral/control conditions were included
(five effect sizes; none of the results of Study 1c were included in the third meta-analysis
because this study did not include a neutral condition)
2
. Following the methods outlined by
Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein (2009), I computed effect sizes by converting
Pearson’s r coefficients into z-scores using Fisher’s Z transformation. For reporting purposes,
after conducting the analyses I converted values back into correlation coefficients.
When conditions were combined, the relationship between decision time and giving was
positive and significant, r(464) = .15, CI95 = .06, .24, p = .001; when conditions were separated,
the relationship was again positive and significant, r(464) = .15, CI95 = .06, .24, p = .001; and

1
Supplemental information can be found at the following site: osf.io/7jt6s
2
We did not have any reason to expect that our main result would differ depending on how the meta-analysis was
conducted (i.e., whether all study conditions were separated or combined, etc.). Still, we conducted these three
analyses to rule out this possibility.
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 23

when only neutral conditions were included, the relationship was still positive and significant,
r(206) = .15, CI95 = .02, .28, p = .026. The overall effect was small, but given that these studies
were designed to test other unrelated hypotheses and included many irrelevant measures and
manipulations, a small effect should be expected. Importantly, even though these studies’ data
likely included a large amount of random error (due to the fact that these studies included many
questions and manipulations irrelevant to the current topic), their combined result still provide
preliminary evidence that non-contingent prosociality tends to increase with decision time.
Study 2: Experimentally Manipulating Decision Time
Study 2 was conducted to experimentally test whether decision time has a causal effect
on non-contingent prosociality. Prior to conducting Study 2, a pretest was conducted in order to
determine what distribution options were appropriate to present to participants in the main study.
Pretest Method
Participants. Participants were 53 AMT workers (51% female, Mage = 31.37).
Participants received $0.50 for agreeing to participate in this study and were told that they would
also have a chance to earn a small amount of bonus money
3
.
Procedure. Each participant made 25 independent distribution decisions on successive
decision pages; the order of the decision pages was randomized. The format and options on each
decision page were adopted from various measures originally designed to assess Social Value
Orientation (SVO; e.g., Murphy, Ackermann, & Handgraaf, 2011). On each decision page,
participants chose one of nine ways of distributing money between themselves and another

3
In all studies, resources were actually distributed to participants based on their choices. After the studies were
completed, participants were randomly paired (or randomly placed into larger groups, as was the case in Study 5)
and appropriate distributions were made based on participants’ responses. In the rare cases in which there were
uneven numbers of participants, a participants’ monetary payout was influenced by another participant who had
been placed in a different group, and so this person (or persons, in Study 5) received money twice.
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 24

anonymous person
4
(e.g., 85 cents for self/15 cents for other; 81 for self/26 cents for other; 76 for
self/36 for other; 72 for self/47 for other; 68 for self/58 for other; 63 for self/68 for other; 59 for
self/79 for other; 54 for self/89 for other; 50 for self/100 for other; see Appendix C in for all
items and answer choices). On each decision page, choices were listed vertically; on 14 pages the
“self” options were ordered in ascending order and the “other” options were ordered in
descending order, and on 11 pages the opposite was true. Each participant was told that one of
their 25 decisions would determine how much money they and their partner received. In this and
all other behavioral studies described in this paper, money was truly distributed to participants
and their anonymous partners according to participants’ decisions. After they made their
decisions, they completed a short demographic page composed of one-item measures of gender,
age, and political ideology.
In investigations of the relationship between prosocial behavior and decision time,
participants tend to be provided with all information related to the decision they must make
before they reach the decision page (e.g., Rand et al., 2012; 2014). A potential problem with this
procedure is that participants are likely to begin to make their decision(s) prior to reaching the
decision page. A possible solution to this problem is to provide all instructions related to the
decision on the actual decision page. Of course, if this procedure was adopted, any “decision
time” would include the amount of time it took participants to (a) make their decision but also
(b) read and understand the directions. In Study 2, in order to avoid both of these potential
validity threats, participants were provided with nearly all pertinent instructions for the task
before they reached the decision pages. The only information that participants were not provided
with before reaching the decision pages was the exact payout options that would be on each

4
In this and subsequent studies, participants were aware that their responses would influence other people, but these
other people were kept anonymous; no personal information about their study partners was provided to participants.
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 25

decision page. I reasoned that this way, participants would be less likely to begin to decide how
to act before they reached the decision pages, but they would also have time to consider the
payout options for each item.
To make sure participants understood the instructions, they made two practice decisions.
After each decision, the consequences of their decision for themselves and their partner were
explained (e.g., “if this was one of the real questions, choosing this option means that you would
receive 40 cents and your partner would receive 60 cents (if this was the randomly selected
question)”). After the second practice decision, participants were asked if they understood the
rules of the task; if they said they did not, they were returned to the instruction page. If they
understood the rules they then completed the main task.
Pretest Results
Five lines of data were deleted due to repeat IP addresses. Remaining responses were
coded in two different ways. First, they were coded dichotomously – participants either acted
prosocially (by choosing to receive the same or less than their partner) or selfishly (by choosing
to get more money than their partner). Second, responses were converted into a ratio representing
how much money participants chose to give to themselves versus their partner. For instance, if a
participant chose to receive 90 cents and chose to allow their partner to have 40 cents, this
decision was coded as “2.25.”
Though this was not intended to be a stand-alone study, I did expect to find and found
that the longer participants took to make their decisions, the more prosocially they acted
(Dichotomous analysis: r(47) = .51, p < .001; Ratio analysis: r(47) = .63, p < .001), and this
remained true when age, gender, and political ideology were adjusted for in multiple regression
analyses (Dichotomous analysis: B(34) = .63, p < .001; Ratio analysis: B(34) = .74,p < .001).
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 26

Study 2 Method
Participants. For the main study, participants were 207 AMT workers (56% male, Mage =
32.37). Our sample size in this and all other experiments was determined by conducting power
analyses based on the results of past research on this topic and/or small pilot tests; each sample
was designed to reach at least 80% power.
Because the studies were conducted online, a small number of participants completed
each study after the a priori limit had been reached. I included these surplus participants in the
analyses, but excluding them did not change the results. Each participant received $0.50 for
agreeing to participate in this study and was told that they would also have a chance to earn a
small amount of bonus money.
Procedure. Once again, participants decided how to distribute varying amounts of
money between themselves and an anonymous partner. The format of Study 2 was identical to
that of the pretest with three exceptions. First, participants were randomly assigned to either a
time pressure condition (in which participants had five seconds or less to make each of their
decisions) or a time delay condition (in which participants had at least 10 seconds to make each
of their decisions); participants in this study’s time delay condition were unable to move past the
decision page until the minimum amount of time had passed. Second, only five items from the
pretest were used; the items used were the five-item combination from the pretest with the
highest internal consistency (α = .95). Third, in order to test whether the effect of decision time
on giving increased (or decreased) as people became more familiar with the structure of the
items, the order of the items in the main study was not randomized. Importantly, on two of the
five decision pages, options progressed from more selfish to less selfish (in descending order)
and on three of the decision pages this was reversed. Therefore, if participants chose the first
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 27

option each time, this would not systematically bias the relationship between condition and
selflessness.
Also, it should be noted that though some of the items in this study had “efficient”
options (i.e., on some items, participants could maximize the amount of money the dyad as a
whole received by choosing the most charitable decision), for item #4 this was not the case.
Here, the generous and selfish options were exact mirrors of each other (i.e., there was a 50 for
“self”/100 for “other” option as well as a 100 for “self”/50 for “other,” etc.). This is important
because it means that if people in the time pressure condition gave less on this item, this could
not be explained by economic inefficiency. See Appendix D for exact materials.
Results
Seven lines of data were deleted due to repeat IP addresses. As in the pretest, remaining
responses were analyzed using a dichotomous scale and a ratio scale. Analyses of the ratio scale
indicated that participants in the time delay condition (vs. those in the time constraint condition)
gave more money to the other person, t(198) = 3.46, d = .49, p = .001, and this was true for all
five individual decisions (Decision 1: t(185) = 3.99, d = .59, p < .001; Decision 2: t(177) =
3.55, d = .53, p < .001; Decision 3: t(183) = 3.94, d = .58, p < .001; Decision 4: t(191) =
2.54, d = .37, p = .012; Decision 5: t(192) = 3.77, d = .54, p < .001). Similarly, dichotomous
scale analyses indicated that participants in the time delay condition were more likely to allocate
an equal or greater amount of money to the other person, t(198) = 5.43, d = .77, p < .001, and
this was true for all five individual decisions (Decision 1: t(185) = 5.37, d = .79, p < .001;
Decision 2: t(177) = 2.18, d = .33, p = .030; Decision 3: t(183) = 5.45, d= .81, p < .001; Decision
4: t(191) = 3.66, d = .53, p < .001; Decision 5: t(192) = 4.55, d = .66, p< .001).Therefore, the
results of Study 2 suggest that decision time increases non-contingent giving.
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 28

Figure 1. Study 2. Percentage of participants who acted prosocially as a function of time
constraint/delay. Error bars represent standard error.

Study 3: Ruling Out a Potential Confound
Contrary to the implications of the SHH, Studies 1 and 2 indicate that decision time
increases non-contingent prosociality. Study 3 was conducted to rule out the possibility that the
results of Study 2 were influenced by a potential violation of random assignment. In the time
constraint condition in Study 2, an average of 12 participants per item (or 12.5%) failed to make
a decision, presumably because they ran out of time. This does not represent a large amount of
missingness, and what’s more, all participants in this study made at least one decision. Still, this
leaves open a small possibility that participants in the time constraint condition were somehow
systematically different than the participants in the time delay condition, and it is theoretically
possible that this influenced the results in Study 2. Study 3 was designed to address this
possibility.

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 29

Method
Participants. The target sample size, design, and hypotheses for this study were
preregistered prior to data collection
5
. Participants were 307 AMT workers. The sample size was
designed to reach 90% power and data collection ended when I reached my target sample size.
Participants received $0.50 and were told they could earn a small bonus.
Procedure. The procedure for Study 3 was identical to the procedure for Study 2 except
that on the final trial, all participants were given unlimited time to make their choice (though
they were not aware of this). This allowed us to test for differences between conditions
regardless of whether time pressured participants made their decisions within five seconds.
Results
Thirteen cases were excluded due to repeat IP addresses. Only three participants took
longer than five seconds to complete Decision 5. Whether their responses were included or not
included in analyses did not change the results. When giving responses were kept continuous
(coded as a ratio of self/other payout) participants in the time delay condition gave more, t(292)
= 2.73, d = .32, p = .007 (Figure 2). In fact, this was true for all five individual decisions;
Decision 1: t(262) = 5.45, d = .67 p < .001; Decision 2: t(265) = 2.41, d = .30, p = .017; Decision
3: t(272) = 2.43, d = .29, p = .016; Decision 4: t(274) = 2.88, d = .35, p = .004; Decision 5:
t(277) = 3.51, d = .42, p = .001.
In addition to analyzing the results using the continuous (ratio) coding metric used above,
I also analyzed the results using the dichotomous metric used in Study 2. When this dichotomous
metric was used, participants in the time delay condition (vs. those in the time constraint
condition) were more likely to allocate an equal or greater amount of money to the other

5
https://osf.io/2uri6/?view_only=aa8d574444bc4107b4316973701a9569
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 30

person, (292) = 5.23, d = .61, p < .001, and this was true for four of five individual decisions
(Decision 1: t(262) = 6.08, d = .75, p < .001; Decision 2: t(265) = 1.18, d = .14, p = .241;
Decision 3: t(272) = 4.29, d = .52, p < .001; Decision 4: t(274) = 3.62, d = .44, p < .001;
Decision 5: t(277) = 5.20, d = .62, p < .001).

Figure 2. Study 3. Percentage of participants who gave an equal or greater amount of money to
their partners. Error bars represent standard error.

Study 4: The Effect of Decision Time on Contingent and Non-Contingent Prosociality
Together, the results of the first three studies provided evidence that, in contrast to
previous findings from economic games (e.g., Rand et al., 2012; 2014), prosocial giving
sometimes actually increases as a function of decision time. However, there are a number of
differences between the kinds of giving in Studies 1-3 and those in economic games used in
previous studies on this topic (e.g., Prisoner’s Dilemma Game, Public Goods Game). In line with
the Social Heuristics Hypothesis, I hypothesized that the crucial difference lay in the
contingencies of payouts on the other player(s): while cooperative giving in contingent/non-
altruistic situations may be an automatic default, altruistic giving in non-contingent situations
will not be. Thus, in Studies 4 and 5 I experimentally manipulated the payout contingency
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 31

structure of these economic games to directly test my hypothesis that though longer decision
times might not increase cooperative giving, they do increase non-contingent giving.
Method
Participants. Participants were 508 AMT workers (66.1% male, Mage = 30.40). Each
participant received $0.25 for agreeing to participate in this study. Participants were told that
they would also have a chance to earn a small amount of bonus money. Past research suggests
that the results of online economic games are similar to the results of “offline” economic games,
and that size of the monetary stakes in economic games does not have a large influence on how
people play these games (Amir & Rand, 2012; Rand, Greene, & Nowak, 2012).
Procedure. The procedures for Studies 4 and 5 were designed to mirror the procedures of
recent studies investigating the relationship between decision time and prosocial behavior as
closely as possible (e.g., Rand et al, 2012; 2014). In Study 4, I experimentally manipulated
decision time and type of giving assessed. Participants were assigned to either (a) a traditional
Prisoner’s Dilemma Game intended to assess contingent giving, or (b) a non-contingent game
designed to assess altruistic giving. A traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma Game was used to assess
contingent giving for two reasons. First, though it is never in a person’s self-interest to cooperate
in a Prisoner’s Dilemma Game, for numerous reasons people often cooperate in economic games
out of the mistaken belief that it is in their self-interest to do so (Burton-Chellew & West, 2013).
Second, the Prisoner’s Dilemma Game was used in past research in which giving appeared to be
negatively affected by decision time (Rand et al., 2012; 2014).
Participants were first asked to simply imagine they were given instructions to play an
economic game; instructions differed across traditional/non-altruistic and non-
contingent/altruistic conditions (described below). The scenario was initially presented as a
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 32

hypothetical scenario so that participants would be less likely to begin to make their decisions
before reaching the decision pages, but at the same time they could begin to make their decision
immediately when they reached the decision page (as is mentioned below, prior to making their
decisions, it was made clear to participants that they would soon be actually be participating in
the scenario they were asked to imagine, but for real money).
On the next page, participants in both conditions were asked to complete questions
designed to assess their comprehension of the information they had just read and one item
designed to assess how well they thought they understood the directions.
Participants in all conditions had a chance to win a small amount of bonus money. In the
non-contingent/altruistic game, the monetary consequences of cooperating or defecting with their
partner were designed to mirror as closely as possible the consequences of decisions in the
traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma Game condition (Table 2). If the decider chose to cooperate, the
potential payout for both the decider and their partner was identical to the payout in the
traditional game when both participants chose to cooperate. If the decider chose not to cooperate,
their potential payout was identical to the largest payout that could result from defecting in the
traditional game and their partner’s payout was identical to the payout associated with mutual
defection in the traditional game. Most importantly, in the non-contingent/altruistic game, each
participant was in complete control of how much of the bonus money they could receive and
how much their partner could receive. Thus, the non-contingent/altruistic game could be
described as a dichotomous-choice dictator game (Engel, 2011; Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler,
1986).

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 33

Table 2. Study 4 Payoff Matrix.

Participants in the traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma Game condition completed four
comprehension questions and participants in the non-contingent/altruistic Prisoner’s Dilemma
Game condition completed two, because the items assessed how well participants remembered
the possible consequences of decisions in these games (there were four different possible
consequences in the traditional/non-altruistic condition and only two in the non-
contingent/altruistic condition). If participants in either condition did not answer all
comprehension questions correctly, they were shown the information page again and were then
asked to again answer the comprehension questions.
Regardless of whether participants correctly answered the comprehension questions on
their second attempt, they were allowed to continue to the next page of the study. On this page,
they were informed either that on the next page they would have up to 15 seconds to answer a
single question (time constraint condition) or that they would have at least 30 seconds to answer
a single question (time delay condition). Importantly, on this page they were not told what the
question would be.
On the next page, participants in each condition were given the following information:
“Now we're giving you the chance to actually play ‘The Money Game.’ The rules are the same as
the rules you just read, but now your decision will actually influence how much money you
Contingent Non-Contingent
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 34

receive if your pair is chosen.” On the bottom of this page, participants could choose between an
“I choose to cooperate” option and an “I choose not to cooperate” option. The order of these
options was randomized for each participant. Finally, participants completed four demographic
questions (political ideology, religiosity, gender, and age), were asked to write down their
confirmation number, and were thanked for their participation. See Appendix E for exact
materials.
Results
Twenty-six lines of data were deleted due to repeat IP addresses. Data from thirty-eight
participants were dropped because these participants twice failed to correctly answer the
comprehension questions. Results did not differ if all participants were included in analyses.
Overall, 63.5% of participants cooperated (52.8% in the traditional/time-constraint condition,
48.5% in the traditional/time delay condition, 68.1% in the non-contingent/time-constraint
condition, and 80.7% in the non-contingent/time delay condition; see Figure 3).
As expected, in the non-contingent conditions, participants in the time-delay condition
gave more than those in the time-constraint condition, t(236) = 2.23, d = 0.29, p = .027 (Figure
3). In the traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma Game (contingent) condition, there was no effect of
time on giving, t(206) = 0.62, p = .537. These patterns were the same when the repeat IP address
data were included, and when demographic variables were included as covariates.
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 35

Figure 3. Study 4. Percentage of participants who cooperated, by condition.

Study 5: Measuring Behavior Using Public Goods Games
Though the automatic cooperation findings of past research (Rand et al, 2012; 2014) were
not replicated in Study 4’s traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma Game condition (there was no
evidence of a negative relationship between decision time and giving), this could have been due
to online participants’ increasing familiarity with such economic games (see Rand et al. (2014)
for evidence that the size of this effect is declining as participants’ experience with economic
games increases). Past experience with economic games should not influence participants’
motivation to act prosocially in these games, but it could mean that they have pre-decided how
they would act if they participated in this type of game in the future, and thus this could have an
undue effect on the relationship between decision time and game decisions. This possibility was
addressed in Study 5. Study 5 also sought to replicate the experimental effects of Study 4 using a
different economic game, the Public Goods Game.

Contingent Non-Contingent
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 36

Method
Participants. Participants were 514 AMT workers (69.1% male, Mage = 27.64). Each
participant received $0.50 for agreeing to participate in the study. Participants were also told that
they would have a chance to earn a small amount of bonus money.
Procedure. Participants were assigned to participate in a traditional Public Goods Game
designed to assess contingent giving, or a non-contingent/altruistic game designed to assess
altruistic giving. A Public Goods Game was used to assess ncontingent giving for the same
reasons that a Prisoner’s Dilemma Game was used in Study 4. Research suggests that people
participating in Public Goods Games often act prosocially out of a combination of (a) non-selfish
motivation and (b) a mistaken belief that it is in their self-interest to give (Anderson, Goeree, &
Holt, 1998; Palfrey & Prisbrey, 1997). Numerous cognitive errors may cause people to believe
that giving in a Public Goods Game is in their self-interest; for instance, quasi-magical thinking
(Quattrone & Tversky, 1988) might cause people to believe that if they give to others, others will
be more likely to give to them.
Participants in both game conditions were told that the amount of bonus money they
received would be determined by the outcome of a scenario that would be described later in the
study. On the next page, participants were then given the instructions to play an economic game.
Participants in the traditional Public Goods Game condition were told that they were starting
with $.40 bonus money that they could keep for themselves or put in a “money pot.” They were
also told that any money they placed in the pot would be multiplied by two and distributed
evenly among themselves and three other participants. Finally, they were told that other people
in the study had received the same instructions, and thus some of the money that other
participants put in the pot would be given to them as well. Participants in the non-contingent
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 37

Public Goods Game condition were given the same instructions, except they were told that a)
they would not receive any money that was placed in the pot and b) four (rather than three) other
people would split the money in the pot (this was done so that in both conditions money placed
in the pot would be divided among four people total). In both conditions, participants’ experience
with cooperative economic games was assessed.
On the next page, participants in both conditions were told that on the page that followed
they would be asked to decide how much bonus money (if any at all) they would place in the
“money pot.” Then, on the next page, they were instructed to decide how much money they
would place in the pot. Participants were able to choose to place into the pot any amount from
$0.00 - $0.40 in increments of 2 cents. Participants chose in increments of two so that the final
amount of money in the pot could be divided evenly.
Afterwards, participants in both conditions were asked to complete two questions
designed to assess their comprehension of the instructions. Some participants also completed a
third comprehension question that was deleted after 120 participants completed it because it was
deemed to be inappropriately easy (and thus did not serve as a useful assessment of people’s
comprehension of the rules of the scenario they had participated in). Participants were then asked
“To what extent have you participated in studies like this one before? (i.e. where you choose how
much to keep for yourself versus contributing to benefit others)” (wording taken from Rand et
al., 2012). Finally, participants completed six demographic questions (gender, age, political
ideology, religious beliefs, current country or countries of residence, and highest level of
education). See Appendix F for exact materials.

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 38

Results
Nineteen lines of data were deleted due to repeat IP addresses. Data from one hundred
fifty six participants were dropped because these participants did not correctly answer a
comprehension question (or answered neither comprehension question correctly). However,
when these participants were included in analyses, the results of our main analyses did not differ.
On average, participants placed $0.17 (42.5% of their bonus money) into the pot, with
those in the traditional Public Goods Game condition placing $0.22 (SD = 16.2) into the pot and
those in the non-contingent condition placing $0.13 (SD = 14.1) into the pot (t (332) = 5.31, d =
.58, p < .001). On average, participants took 8.3 seconds (SD = 12.30) to decide how much
money to place into the pot; decision time did not differ by condition.
As expected, in the non-contingent Public Goods Game condition, decision time was
positively related to the amount of money participants placed in the pot, r(184) = .26, d = .54, p
< .001 (Figure 4) but in the traditional (contingent) Public Goods Game condition, the
relationship between decision time and giving was not significant, r(148) = .01, p = .906. The
difference between these relationships was significant (z = 2.31, p = .02). However, among
participants in the traditional Public Goods Game who reported not having any experience with
cooperation games (Figure 5), there was a significant negative relationship between decision
time and giving, r(45) = -.32, d = .68, p = .028, replicating previous findings (Rand et al., 2012;
2014). Thus, the results of Study 5 suggest that decision time is positively related to non-
contingent giving and negatively related to contingent cooperative giving (at least when people
are not experienced with economic games).
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 39

Figure 4. Study 5. Amount of money placed in pot, by condition. Faster/slower decisions based
on median split. Error bars represent standard error.

Figure 5. Study 5, naïve participants only. Amount of money placed in pot, by condition.
Faster/slower decisions based on median split. Error bars represent standard error.

When the data of the 156 participants who did not correctly answer both comprehension
questions were included, and when demographic variables were included as covariates, the
patterns of results were the same. However, when participants who did not pass the
comprehension questions were included, there was no relationship in the traditional condition
between decision time and giving among naïve participants, r(80) = -.14, p = .201.

Contingent Non-contingent
Contingent Non-contingent
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 40

Study 6: Testing the Validity of Prosociality Measures
Studies 4 and 5 show that while cooperative giving may not increase as a function of
time, non-contingent giving does indeed increase with time. But the conclusions I draw from
these studies are only accurate if my measures assessing contingent and non-contingent giving
are valid. In Study 6, I tested my assumption that the behavioral measures used as proxies of
non-contingent giving in Studies 4 and 5 (non-contingent/altruistic adaptations of Prisoner’s
Dilemma and Public Goods Games) are viewed as more indicative of selflessness than the
behavioral measures that were used as proxies of contingent giving (traditional Prisoner’s
Dilemma and Public Goods Games).
Method
Participants. Participants were 626 AMT workers. Each participant received either
$0.25 or $0.50 for agreeing to participate in this study.
6

Procedure. Each participant reported the degree to which they considered different
choices in a Prisoner’s Dilemma Game and Public Goods Game to be (a) selfish/generous and
(b) cooperative/uncooperative on 9-point Likert scales (Extremely Cooperative-Extremely
Uncooperative; Extremely Selfish-Extremely Generous). Which Prisoner’s Dilemma Game and
which Public Goods Game each participant rated was randomly determined. With one exception,
these games were identical to the games previously described in Studies 4 and 5. The one
exception is that in the directions of the Prisoner’s Dilemma Games, participants were told that
in the hypothetical situation described, participants would need to choose “between Option One
and Option Two” rather than “between cooperating with the other person in your group or not

6
The first 199 participants were given $0.25 for their participation in this study, and the final 405 participants were
given $0.50. This change in compensation was made because recruitment was slow when participants were only
guaranteed $0.25. None of the results reported in this section differed significantly between these two groups of
participants.
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 41

cooperating with them.” This was done so that participants’ perceptions of the cooperativeness of
behavior in these games were not influenced by the wording. All participants also rated the
selfishness/generosity and cooperative/uncooperativeness of various decisions similar to those
used in Studies 1-3. As attention check questions, participants rated the selfishness/generosity
and cooperativeness/uncooperativeness of eating pickles (anything but “neutral” responses were
coded as non-attentive). See Appendix G for exact materials.
Results
Twenty-two lines of data were deleted due to repeat IP addresses. Additionally, data from
205 participants were deleted because these participants did not pass one or both of the attention
check questions (i.e., they did not rate “eating pickles” as neutral in terms of (a)
selfishness/generosity and/or (b) cooperativeness/uncooperativeness). Including these people in
the analyses did not affect my findings.
First, I tested for differences in how indicative of selfishness (or selflessness) and
cooperativeness my participants considered choices in the different games (traditional vs.
adapted) used in Studies 4 and 5. To do this, I created aggregated measures for each participant:
three selfish/generous measures (one for the Public Goods Game, one for the Prisoner’s
Dilemma Game, and one for the type of generosity measures typically used in Studies 1a-1f) and
two cooperative/uncooperative measures (one for the Public Goods Game and one for the
Prisoner’s Dilemma Game). I created each measure by first creating absolute value scores (i.e., I
computed how far each participant’s answer to each question deviated from the neutral
response). These absolute value scores were then combined to create selfish/generous relevance
composite scores as well as cooperative/uncooperative relevance composite scores for each type
of prosocial opportunity. Absolute value scores were used in order to assess perceptions of how
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 42

relevant each behavior is to selfishness or cooperativeness because in some cases (e.g., putting
half of one’s money in a PGG pot) the same behavior could be perceived differently by different
people (e.g., some might consider this highly selfish while others might consider it highly
generous). Absolute value scores were therefore used in order to avoid these responses
cancelling each other out and thus obscuring the perceived moral relevance of the behaviors.
As expected, participants considered cooperating in the non-contingent/altruistic
Prisoner’s Dilemma Game used in Study 4 to be more generous (and less selfish) than
cooperating in the traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma Game, t(442) = -6.11, d = 0.58, p < .001, and
participants considered giving in the non-contingent/altruistic Public Goods Game used in Study
5 to be more generous (and less selfish) than cooperating in the traditional Public Goods Game,
t(441) = 3.99, d = .38, p < .001. The results of all analyses were similar when including
participants who did not pass the attention questions, and when controlling for cooperativeness
scores.
Finally, participants considered decisions in the charitable giving scenario (used in Study
1) to be more indicative of generosity/selfishness than decisions on the traditional Prisoner’s
Dilemma Games, t(224) = 13.84, d = 1.85, p < .001, and traditional Public Goods Games, t(221)
= 7.87, d = 1.06, p < .001.
Study 7: Experimentally Manipulating the Contingency of Prosocial Behavior
Together, the results of Studies 1-6 indicate that although decision time does not increase
cooperative prosocial behavior, it does increase non-contingent prosociality. However, the non-
contingent and contingent conditions in Studies 4 and 5 could differ in a number of respects, and
therefore the disparate effects of decision time on behavior in these two conditions might differ
for reasons other than the non-contingent vs. contingent nature of the games. The purpose of
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 43

Study 7 was to address this potential limitation by comparing prosociality between conditions
that differed only in the degree to which behavior could be influenced by self-interest. In
addition, Study 7 investigated a different form of prosocial behavior, using helping instead of
giving. I expected that non-contingent helping would increase with decision time more than
contingent helping.
Method
Participants. Participants were 282 AMT workers. Each participant received $0.50 for
agreeing to participate in this study. Eight lines of data were deleted due to repeat IP addresses.
Including these people in the analyses did not meaningfully change the results reported below.
Additionally, for unknown reasons, decision time for four participants was not captured by
Qualtrics.
Procedure. Participants first completed a shortened and adapted 20-item version of the
HEXACO personality measure (Lee & Ashton, 2004). After completing this measure,
participants were invited to complete an additional, optional set of items. Participants in a non-
contingent condition were informed that they would not receive any additional money for
completing the optional survey, whereas participants in a non-contingent condition were told
they would receive a very small amount of bonus money ($0.05) for completing the optional
survey. Specifically, each participant was told:
VERY IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ ALL. For completing the survey on the previous
page, you will receive $0.50. It would also be extremely helpful to us if some of our participants
also completed a longer optional survey. Completing this optional survey would be extremely
helpful to us and it could also have a real benefit to science and - hopefully - to society.

Please note that it would probably take you about 10 minutes to complete this entire optional
survey. That said, completing any amount of this optional survey is entirely optional. Note that
you would [not receive any extra money/receive an extra $0.05] for completing this optional
survey.

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 44

If participants agreed to complete the extra survey, they were sent to the survey and they were
subsequently paid an additional $0.05.
The median hourly rate of pay on AMT as of 2010 ($1.38; Horton & Chilton, 2010) is
more than four times greater than the rate at which non-altruistic participants could expect to
receive money by completing the extra task (0.05 for 10 minutes of work = $0.30/hour). Thus,
participants in the contingent condition should have had little doubt that – though there was some
monetary incentive for them to complete this extra task – they would have made much more
money by completing another task. Therefore, I reasoned that participants in this condition
would not complete the task simply for monetary reasons, and thus helping behavior in this
condition would constitute a contingent prosocial behavior. I expected that, in line with Studies
1-5, decision time would be positively related to non-contingent helping in the non-
contingent/altruistic condition, but this would not be the case for contingent helping in the non-
altruistic condition.
Results
Overall, 39.4% of participants agreed to complete the optional survey. Willingness to
help differed across conditions. In the contingent condition, 50.4% of participants agreed to help,
whereas 29.9% of participants in the non-contingent condition agreed to help, t(272) = 3.52, d =
.43, p =.001. The relationship between decision time and helping also differed across conditions.
Whereas there was a significant, positive relationship between decision time and helping in the
non-contingent condition, r(133) = .34, d = .73, p < .001, there was no relationship between
decision time and helping in the contingent condition, r(134) = .08, p = .36. The difference
between these relationships was significant (z = 2.23, p = .025). Given that the two conditions
differed only in that participants in the contingent condition had a small amount of self-interested
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 45

incentive to be helpful, this result once again suggests that although contingent helping does not
increase with time, non-contingent helping does.

Figure 6. Study 7. Percent of participants who agreed to help, by condition. Faster/slower
decisions based on median split.

Study 8: Testing Why Decision Time Increases Non-Contingent Prosociality
Studies 1-7 suggest that, contrary to the tenets of SHH and in contrast to decision time’s
influence on contingent cooperation, decision time increases non-contingent prosociality. In
Study 8, I investigated what accounts for decision time’s influence on non-contingent
prosociality. Specifically, I tested whether this influence stems from increased altruistic
motivation relative to selfish motivation (the moral motives account) or reduced absolute levels
of conflict between altruistic and selfish motivation (the conflict account). As a first test of this
hypothesis, I used an existing dataset to determine if there was evidence that moral motivation
increases with decision time (Study 8a). I then investigated the effect of decision time
manipulations on both non-contingent prosocial behavior and moral motives and assessed
whether changes in moral motives accounted for change in non-contingent prosociality (Study
8b).

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 46

Method – Study 8a
Participants. Participants were 5,982 visitors (43% female, mean age 39) to
YourMorals.org, a website where volunteers can complete personality measures typically related
to moral constructs.
Procedure. Participants were included in analyses if they completed the self-importance
of moral identity scale (SIMIS; Aquino & Reed, 2002) and the amount of time it took for them to
complete the measure was registered in the yourmorals dataset. The SIMIS was used to test the
time course of moral motivation because it is perhaps the measure that contemporary
psychologists most often use to measure moral motivation.
Participants who complete the SIMIS are first asked to read a list of nine morally-relevant
traits and to think about the type of person who possesses these traits. Participants are then asked
to answer ten questions about how important it is to them to be a person who possesses these
nine traits. In the current study, the response options ranged from 1(Strongly Disagree) to 7
(Strongly Agree).
Results
Average scores on the SIMIS reached levels that are common for this measure (M = 4.98,
SD = 1.05), as did internal consistency (α = .87). As with all other studies in this paper, the
amount of time participants took to complete the SIMIS was log10 transformed, and as expected,
the relationship between SIMIS and time was positive, though very small, B(5,887) = .03, p =
.013
7
. Still, this result provides preliminary evidence that moral motivation increases with time.
In Study 8b, we investigated whether manipulations of decision time also influence moral

7
This effect remained significant when controlling for age and gender, B(5,885) = .03, p = .013.
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 47

motives, and whether this influence accounts for changes in non-contingent prosociality across
time.
Method – Study 8b
Participants. Participants were 364 AMT workers. Each participant received $0.50 for
agreeing to participate in this study. Two lines of data were deleted due to repeat IP addresses.
Including these people in the analyses did not meaningfully change the results reported below.
Procedure. Participants were first informed that in this study they would be making six
decisions, one of which would determine how much additional work they would need to
complete after completing these six decisions. Participants were also told that on each decision
page, they would need to choose one of two options. Both of the two options on each page
included a number that represented an extra amount of work they would need to complete if they
chose this option (and this option was selected as the decision that would determine how much
additional work they would need to complete) as well as an amount of money. Participants were
informed that a different MTurk worker would receive the amount of money they agreed to work
for, and that they themselves would not receive any additional money (see Appendix H for exact
directions and items).
After reading the initial instructions for this task, participants then completed an attention
check item in which they were shown three different statements and were told to choose the
statement that was most correct; this statement stated “I understand that one of my six decisions
will actually influence how much extra work I complete and how much money someone else
receives.” A total of 34 participants failed this attention check item. However, because my
central findings remained the same regardless of whether these participants were excluded, the
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 48

findings presented below represent the results of analyses when these participants were included
in these analyses.
Next, participants in a time constraint condition were informed that they would have only
three seconds to make each decision, and participants in a time delay condition were told that
they would need to wait at least 6 seconds before they could continue to the next decision page.
Participants then completed three practice items. After they made each practice decision,
participants received custom feedback informing them of what the implications of their decisions
would have been if their decisions had not been practice decisions (see example in Appendix
SH).
After completing these three practice decisions, participants were informed that they
would next make their six actual decisions, one of which would determine how much extra work
they would be required to complete and how much money another MTurk worker received.
On five of the six decision pages, participants would need to perform the larger of the
two amounts of work displayed in order for the other MTurk worker to receive the larger of the
two amounts of money displayed (e.g., Work 11 minutes///Give $1.50 vs. Work 0 minutes///Give
$0.00). Therefore, on five of the six decision pages, it was in a participant’s self-interest to
choose the option that would allow them to do the least amount of work possible, and on these
decision pages it was always in the other participant’s interest for them to choose the larger
amount of work. One of the six decision pages and one of the three practice pages included an
option that would allow participants to do the least amount of work in order for the other person
to get the most amount of money. These items were used as comprehension check items.
Because it was likely that participants (especially constraint condition participants) would
occasionally choose the anti-self-interest and anti-other-interest items accidentally rather than
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 49

because they did not understand the situation, participants’ responses were considered evidence
of miscomprehension only if they chose this option both times they had the opportunity to do so.
A total of nine participants failed this comprehension check. However, because the central
findings remained the same regardless of whether participants were excluded for failing the
comprehension check, the findings presented below represent the results of analyses when these
participants were included in these analyses
8
.
Just prior to completing their first of six “actual” decisions, participants were also told
that following each decision they would be asked to complete five follow-up questions. These
items were used to test the moral motives and conflict accounts. Participants answered each of
the five items using a response scale that ranged from 0 (Very little) to 6 (Very much). The order
of the five items was randomized for each participant.
Decisional conflict was measured using three items modeled after those used by Evans,
Dillon, & Rand (2015). Specifically, participants answered the following items:
In this situation, how much did you care about choosing the option that would require
you to do the smaller amount of work?

In this situation, how much did you care about choosing the option that would allow you
to earn the larger amount of money for the other person?

In this situation, how conflicted did you feel when deciding which option to choose?

In order to measure absolute levels of conflict, I first subtracted response scores for the second
item from response scores for the first item (these items will henceforward be referred to as
“care” items). The absolute value of this result was then calculated. As previous research would
suggest, this item and the third item listed above were strongly correlated, r(359) = .45, CI95 =

8
When participants who failed the attention check and the comprehension check were excluded simultaneously,
results again remained the same.
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 50

.36, .53, p < .001. Finally, the absolute value of the difference between the care items was
combined with the third item, and this combined score was divided by two.
Moral motives were measured using the first two items listed above as well as two
additional items (henceforward referred to as “benefit” items):
In this situation, to what extent would it have benefitted you if you chose the option that
would have required you to do the smaller amount of work? (emphasis in original)

In this situation, to what extent would it have benefitted the other person if you chose the
option that would have allowed you to earn them the larger amount of money? (emphasis
in original)

To measure moral motives, the two “self-interest” items (the first and fourth items listed above)
were reverse scored and were then combined with the “other-interest” items (the second and fifth
items listed above); the resultant score was then divided by four in order to create a single moral
motives score.
After the two self-interest items were reverse scored, the internal reliability of the four
items used to compose the moral motives scale was acceptable (α = .64), but not high. In
hindsight, the “benefit” items may better measure people’s awareness of the consequences of
their decisions rather than their motives, and therefore I conducted my analyses both when these
items were included in the moral motives measure and when they were excluded.
After making all six behavioral decisions, participants were randomly assigned to extra
blocks of work, based on how much work they agreed to complete on one of their decision
pages. The extra work was composed of pilot studies for projects not intended to be relevant to
the current project. Finally, participants reported their gender and age.
Results
Non-contingent prosocial decision-making was positively related to both decisional
conflict, r (359) = .15, CI95 = .05, .25, p = .004 and moral motivation, r (359) = .78, CI95 = .74,
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 51

.82, p < .001. When moral motivation was separated into “benefit” items and “care” items, non-
contingent prosociality was related to both the benefit items, r (359) = .49, CI95 = .41, .56, p <
.001, and the care items, r (359) = .81, CI95 = .77, .84, p < .001.
Overall, non-contingent prosociality was higher in the time delay condition (62%) than in
the time pressure condition (52%), t(360) = 2.63, d = .28, p = .009; moral motivation was also
higher in the time delay condition, t(359) = 2.83, d = .30, p = .005. Time delay increased scores
on both the care items, t(359) = 2.05, d = .22, p = .04, and the benefit items, t(359) = 3.19, d =
.34, p = .002, but did not influence conflict scores, t(359) = .53, p = .60.
Next, I conducted a set of mediational analyses following the recommendations of
Preacher and Hayes (2008). As expected, moral motivation mediated the effect of decision time
on non-contingent prosociality (CI95:[.03, .14]); separately, both the care items (CI95:[.003, .12])
and the benefit items (CI95:[.02, .10]) mediated this effect, and when both were included
simultaneously in the analysis, both still mediated the effect (Care: CI95:[.001, .12]; Benefit:
CI95:[.001, .03]).
Importantly, the time manipulation’s effect on non-contingent prosociality was no longer
significant when controlling for moral motivation, β(358) = .02, p = .57, thus suggesting that
changes in moral motivation across time entirely accounted for changes in non-contingent
prosociality across time. This was also true for care items separately, β(358) = .05, p = .12.
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 52

Figure 7. Study 8. Mediation analysis, Experiment 5. ns = not significant; p < .01 = **; p < .001 = ***
Together, these results support the moral motivation account but not the conflict account.
Whereas changes in moral motives across time appear to fully account for changes in non-
contingent prosociality across time, manipulations of decision time do not appear to influence
decisional conflict, and thus decisional conflict cannot account for changes in non-contingent
prosociality.
Study 9: Meta-Analyses Using Data from Studies 1-8
The results of Studies 1-8 repeatedly contradict the predictions of the SHH. Whereas the
SHH predicts that all prosocial behavior should decrease with decision time, I find that decision
time is positively related to non-contingent prosociality, and manipulations of decision time
increase non-contingent prosociality.
Another hypothesis derived from the SHH is that women should be more intuitively
altruistic than men (Rand et al., 2016). According to Rand et al. (2016), if fast, intuitive
responses favor typically successful behaviors, women should be more intuitively altruistic than
men, because society expects women to behave more altruistically than men (Eagly, 1987;
Heilman & Chen, 2005), and therefore women are more likely to be punished for not acting
altruistically (Heilman & Okimoto, 2007). Recent research exclusively using zero-sum dictator
Prosocial
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 53

games appears to support this hypothesis (Rand et al., 2016), but given the lack of support for the
SHH in Studies 1-8, I decided to use my data to test the replicability of this result when a variety
of assessments of non-contingent prosocial behavior are used.
I also conducted a meta-analysis of the results of Studies 4, 5, and 7 in order to test
whether across these studies the type of prosocial situation (contingent vs. noncontingent)
significantly moderated the effect of decision time on prosociality. The original intention of
Study 4 (as well as Study 5 and Study &) was to show that non-contingent prosocial behavior
takes time to emerge, but contingent prosocial behavior does not – not to show that non-
contingent behavior takes more time to emerge than contingent behavior. Because this was not
the original intention, it is possible that these studies are underpowered for this purpose, and
therefore in Study 9 I conduct a meta-analysis including all relevant results to effectively test this
interaction.
Results and Discussion
Where applicable, ratio scale results were used for analyses. Once again, following the
methods outlined by Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein (2009), I computed effect sizes
by converting Pearson’s r coefficients into z-scores using Fisher’s Z transformation. For
reporting purposes, after conducting the analyses I converted values back into correlation
coefficients.
When results from all non-contingent conditions in all studies were combined, the overall
relationship between decision time and non-contingent prosociality was small but significant,
r(1850) = .19, CI95 = .14, .23, p < .001. This relationship was slightly stronger for correlation
studies, r(816) = .22, CI95 = .15, .29, p = .001, than for manipulation studies, r(1032) = .16, CI95
= .10, .22, p = .001, but this difference was not significant, Q(1, 25) = 1.50, p = .221. This result
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 54

differs from the result of a recent meta-analysis of 22 zero-sum dictator games suggests that
manipulations of intuition (including time pressure manipulations) do not have an influence on
decision making in these games (Rand et al., 2016). Though this research suggests that some
forms of non-contingent prosocial behavior might not be influenced by decision time or intuition
more broadly, this is a relatively small meta-analysis targeting behavior in one particular
economic game (zero-sum dictator games), it includes data from 13 previously unpublished
studies “(including failed pilots, experiments with problematic design features, etc)” (Rand et al.,
2016), and most of these studies were presumably conducted in order to test other questions. In
contrast, the current studies suggest that when the relationship between decision time and non-
contingent prosociality is directly tested using multiple measures of non-contingent prosociality
in highly powered studies, the evidence supports that overall, non-contingent prosociality takes
time.
When these results were separated by gender, there was no evidence for more intuitive
non-contingent prosociality among women than men. In fact, if anything there was a trend in the
opposite direction (compared to non-contingent prosociality among men, non-contingent
prosociality among women increased more with time), though this effect did not reach
significance, Q(1, 25) = 32.32, p = .149. When only manipulation studies were included in the
meta-analysis, results were similar, Q(1, 7) = 2.95, p = .419.
Finally, when all studies that included a non-contingent and a contingent prosocial
condition were combined, the relationship between decision time and prosociality was indeed
moderated by the type of prosocial situation that was presented to participants, Q(1, 25) = 32.32,
p = .149. Whereas the overall relationship between decision time and non-contingent prosociality
was positive and significant, r(464) = .23, CI95 = .15, .31, p < .001, there was no overall
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 55

relationship between decision time and contingent prosociality, r(565) = -.001, CI95 = -.09, .09, p
= .989.
These results run counter to the SHH and its supporting studies in at least three ways.
First, these results suggest once again that non-contingent prosociality takes time – something
that the SHH suggests should not ever be the case (Rand, Greene, & Nowak, 2012; Rand et al.,
2015; Rand et al., 2016). Second, these results suggest that even contingent prosocial behaviors
may only sometimes be impulsive; whereas past research suggested that contingent cooperative
behavior in PDGs and PGGs went down with time, here there was no relationship between
decision time and behavior in these games (or the contingent condition in Study 7). Finally, the
current results run contrary to the SHH-derived hypothesis that women should be more
impulsively prosocial than men (Rand et al., 2016). If anything, in my studies, women appeared
to be less impulsively prosocial than men. It should be noted, however, that Rand et al.’s (2016)
studies differ from the current studies in that they were all specifically zero-sum dictator games.
It is therefore possible that this difference in methodology could somehow account for
differences between my findings and these previous findings.
General Discussion
Taken together, the current studies support my proposed model of the effect of decision
time on prosociality. Certain forms of prosociality might not increase with longer decision times,
but non-contingent prosocial behavior tends to work differently. Though the results of past
research show that contingent cooperative giving decreases with decision time, measures
specifically designed to assess multiple types of non-contingent behavior reveal the opposite
pattern. In studies 1a-1f, decision time was positively related to generosity. The experimental
results of Studies 2 and 3 indicated that decision time has a positive effect on selfless giving. In
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 56

Study 4, greater decision time caused more cooperation in an adapted non-contingent/altruistic
Prisoner’s Dilemma Game, but did not affect decisions on a traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma
Game (in which selfish motives are more likely to also contribute to prosocial behavior). In
Study 5, decision time was positively related to cooperation and generosity in an adapted non-
contingent/altruistic Public Goods Game (in which selfish motives were less likely to underlie
prosocial behavior) but not a traditional Public Goods Game. In Study 6 participants rated the
behaviors that were positively affected by decision time in Studies 1-5 (generosity and giving in
non-contingent/altruistic economic games) to be more prosocially relevant than giving in
traditional contingent economic games. In Study 7, helping behavior increased with time when
participants’ prosocial behavior was unincentivized, but not when it was incentivized. In Study 8,
I found that manipulations of decision time influence non-contingent prosociality specifically
because of their effect on moral motives. Finally, a meta-analysis of my results further supported
that non-contingent prosociality – but not contingent prosociality – increases with time, and that
this effect holds for both men and women.
In line with recent research suggesting that increased decision time reduces cooperative
giving (Rand et al., 2012; Rand et al., 2014), the current results (specifically Study 5) suggest
that this is likely to be the case when prosociality is driven by a relatively large amount of selfish
motivation (as appears to be the case in traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma and Public Goods
Games). At least among people who do not have experience playing Public Goods Games,
cooperation in these games was negatively related to decision time. However, the current
findings suggest that this effect does not generalize to all prosocial behavior. These results not
only refute the idea that prosocial behavior universally declines as a function of decision time,
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 57

but they indicate that this is specifically not true when it comes to non-contingent prosocial
behavior.
Implications
The current studies help reconcile conflicting findings in the literature on decision time
and prosocial behavior. Some past studies indicated that “slow” System 2 processes increase
prosocial behavior (Kessler & Meier, 2014; Tinghög et al., 2013; Verkoeijen & Bouwmeester,
2014) and reduce selfish behavior (Aguilar-Pardo, Martínez-Arias, & Colmenares, 2013;
DeWall, Baumeister, Gailliot, & Maner, 2008; Fiedler, Glöckner, Nicklisch, & Dickert, 2013;
Martinsson, Myrseth, & Wollbrant, 2012; Piovesan & Wengstrom, 2009), while other studies
suggested the opposite was true (Cappelletti, Goth, & Ploner, 2011; Cone & Rand, 2014;
Kieslich & Hilbig, 2014; Lotito, Migheli, & Ortona, 2013; Nielsen, Tyran, & Wengström, 2014;
Rand et al., 2014; Rand, Greene, & Nowak, 2012; Rand & Kraft-Todd, 2014; Rand, Newman, &
Wurzbacher, 2014; Schulz, Fischbache, Thöni, & Utikal, 2012; Uziel & Hefetz, 2014). My
results cannot account for all of the conflicting findings on this topic, but the results of Studies 4,
5, and 7 demonstrate that discrepancies in the types of prosocial behavior assessed in past studies
help account for many of these divergent findings. Though contingent cooperative prosocial
behavior may not increase with decision time, non-contingent behavior often does.
That said, I do not intend to suggest that non-contingent behavior categorically increases
with decision time, or that manipulations of decision time should universally increase non-
contingent behavior. Previous correlational research suggests this is not the case (Krajbich et al.,
2016). Given that decision time’s influence on non-contingent prosociality appears to be driven
by decision time’s influence on moral motives, two general situations in which decision time
may not improve non-contingent prosocial behavior are when moral motives are unlikely to
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 58

change with time (e.g., when they are impulsively at ceiling due to strong feelings of moral
emotion) and when moral motives are unlikely to influence non-contingent prosociality (e.g.,
when prosocial behavior would simply be too costly to the actor, such as when one has the
opportunity to sacrifice their life for another person; Rand & Epstein, 2014). However, the
current results do suggest that – contrary to previous theorizing – decision time often increases
non-contingent prosociality, and that all else equal, decision time influences non-contingent
prosociality differently than other forms of prosocial behavior.
The current results also suggest that non-contingent prosociality (but not contingent
prosocial behavior) may be a relatively “System 2” process. In the current studies, I focused
exclusively on the time course of non-contingent prosociality, but because time pressure and
decision time manipulations are traditionally accepted as manipulations of intuition/deliberation
(Rand et al., 2016; Cone & Rand, 2014; Smith & DeCoster, 2000; Suter & Hertwig, 2011), there
is considerable reason to suspect that the current studies (particularly those involving
manipulations of decision time) also have important implications for the effect of deliberation on
non-contingent prosociality. Of course, additional research using different proxies for intuition
vs. deliberation may be needed before such a generalization is made.
Implications for the Social Heuristics Hypothesis. My findings are largely consistent
with the Social Heuristics Hypothesis’s (SHH; Rand et al., 2012, 2014) claim that the
consequences of one’s past prosocial behavior helps determine whether decision time increases
or decreases prosocial behavior. Compared to contingent prosocial behavior, such as giving in
cooperative and contingent situations, non-contingent behavior is less likely to have an
immediate positive impact on an actor; it is perhaps for this reason that an automatic altruistic
heuristic was not found in cases of non-contingent giving.
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 59

However, the current results are not fully in line with important predictions derived from
the SHH. Whereas “the effect of time pressure is predicted [by the SHH] to vary from strongly
positive to no significant effect, but not to be significantly negative in any studies” (Rand et al.,
2014), here I consistently show negative effects of time pressure on prosocial behavior. This
suggests that people’s automatic default is not always prosocial, even in economic games (when
one’s payout is no longer contingent on other players). The current studies also call into question
the “conclusion that intuitive processes promote prosociality for some people, and have no effect
for others, but do not systematically decrease prosociality” (Rand et al., 2014) – again, in cases
of non-contingent giving, automatic processes do in fact appear to decrease prosociality.
Furthermore, automatic processes appear to suppress even the motivation to act altruistically.
In addition to running counter to predictions of the SHH, the current findings also do not
replicate recent SHH-inspired studies. Whereas previous work suggests that manipulations of
time pressure do not increase non-contingent behavior, and that among women time
manipulations might even reduce non-contingent prosociality (Rand et al., 2016), I find that non-
contingent prosociality takes time for men and for women. In neither my correlational nor my
experimental studies did the relationship between decision time and non-contingent prosociality
differ across gender, and if anything, my data suggests that time delay has a more positive
influence on non-contingent prosociality in women than men. Though I also failed to replicate
work indicating that PDG and PGG behavior is related to decision time, as I mentioned
previously, this could be due to participants’ increased familiarity with these games.
Much of the previous research on these topics has exclusively relied on traditional
economic games to test hypotheses related to prosociality (e.g., PDGs and PGGs) and altruism
(e.g., dictator games). Here, we use alternative measures of prosociality (e.g., measures of
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 60

helpfulness and charitable giving); it is possible that these measures are better suited for
assessing the constructs of interest in this literature (see below for further discussion), and thus
perhaps this can partly account for some of the divergence between our studies and previous
findings.
Implications for measuring prosocial behavior. Finally, the current studies highlight
the scientific limitations of widely-used cooperative economic games for studying morality and
prosocial behavior. Though the decisions people make when playing these games might be partly
influenced by their desire (or lack of desire) to perform good deeds, these decisions are also
influenced by more selfish motives. Consequently, although previous studies using such games
suggested “spontaneous giving and calculated greed” (Rand et al., 2012), simple modifications to
these games to make players’ own rewards no longer contingent upon the other players’
decisions consistently reveal the opposite pattern – that non-contingent giving takes time.
The generalizability of research that utilizes economic games is questionable (Winking &
Mizer, 2013), and the current research suggests that this is especially true when economic games
are used as assessments of prosociality. It might sometimes be useful to use traditional economic
games such as Prisoner’s Dilemma and Public Goods games to assess prosociality, but these
games were not designed to assess prosociality or selflessness, nor should psychologists expect
them to strongly assess these constructs. The current studies suggest researchers should use
caution when considering using decisions in cooperative economic games as measures of
generosity or selflessness in general. Though these decisions can be partly influenced by
altruistic motives, they can be influenced by selfish motives as well.

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 61

Future Directions
The nine studies reported in this paper assessed the relationship between decision-making
and multiple different types of prosocial behavior (e.g., non-contingent and contingent, giving
and helping), but it is possible that other forms of prosociality are not affected by decision time
in the same way. For instance, it remains unknown whether decision time has the same causal
effect on the willingness to sacrifice one’s safety to help someone in danger. As I mentioned
earlier, given the current finding that delayed non-contingent prosociality is caused by shifts in
moral motivation, one could posit that in life and death situations, delay will not increase non-
contingent prosociality, as it seems unlikely that in these situations moral motives will often have
a strong influence on behavior. And in fact, there is reason to think that people who perform
brave acts (e.g., saving someone from being hit by a train) are relatively impulsive in other areas
of life (DeSteno & Valdesolo, 2011), and so perhaps in extreme situations impulsivity
encourages non-contingent prosociality. Of course, even if this is true, this might only be the
case because many brave actions require people to act quickly (e.g., think too long, and the train
has already passed)., when people do have a considerable amount of time to decide how to act in
extreme situations, decision time may indeed increase non-contingent prosociality. Thus, it is
possible that when people have a chance to thoroughly think about whether to act bravely or not,
they are more likely to do so, as differences in rates of altruism on the Lusitania and the Titanic
suggest (Frey, Savage, & Torgler, 2010). Though recent research indicates that winners of
heroism awards appear to have acted on instinct (Rand & Epstein, 2014), due to the
retrospective, self-reported, and – for obvious and understandable reasons – non-experimental
nature of this study, the causal effect of decision time on extreme acts of self-sacrifice remains
unclear. In the future, researchers might investigate this possibility by assessing the relationship
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 62

between decision time and whether or not people make brave decisions for which both
experimental manipulation and reflection are possible (such as joining a fire company).
Conclusion
Together, the current results systematically indicate for the first time that selflessness and
non-contingent prosociality take time to emerge, and that decision time acts differently on non-
contingent prosocial behavior than on contingent forms of prosocial behavior such as
cooperation. The current studies also show for the first time that moral motives take time to arise.
Interpreted in one way, these results paint a somewhat pessimistic picture of human nature, as it
seems that people’s automatic defaults are relatively unaltruistic. However, interpreted in another
way, these results offer a decidedly more sanguine view of human nature: conscious thought – a
quality often considered to be at the heart of what it is to be human – helps people approach the
limits of selflessness.

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 63

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Appendix A: Dependent Variable for Studies 1a-c, e, and f
______________________________________________________________________________

Actual Opportunity to Win $50 and/or Give $30 to Charity
In a little bit we will give you a real chance to win a $50 bonus and we will also give you the
option to give $30 of your $50 bonus to a charity of your choice if you are chosen as the winner
of the $50 bonus. If you choose to give $30 of your bonus money to charity, we will ask you to
note what charity you want this money to go to if you win. If you choose to keep the money we
will place the money in your MTURK account.

***We promise that we are in no way lying about this***
----------------------------------------------------Page Break---------------------------------------------------
Now please make your actual decision.

If you win the $50, should we give you the whole $50 or should we give you $20 and give $30 to
the charity of your choice?

-Give the whole 50 dollars to me
-Give 30 dollars to charity and 20 dollars to me

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 73

Appendix B: Dependent Variable for Study 1d
______________________________________________________________________________
Actual Opportunity to Give Up to $50 to Charity
Today we are actually giving you a chance to win a $50 bonus and we are also actually giving
you the option to give some or all of your $50 bonus to a charity of your choice if you are chosen
as the winner of the $50 bonus. In what follows we will ask you how much of the $50 bonus - if
any at all - you choose to give to a charity of your choice if you are randomly selected as the
winner of this money.

VERY IMPORTANT: We promise that we are in no way lying about this.
----------------------------------------------------Page Break---------------------------------------------------
Now we'd like you to make your actual decision.
Below, please indicate how much of the $50 bonus - if any at all - you would like to give to a
charity of your choice if you are randomly selected as the winner of the $50 bonus.

If you choose to give money to charity, on the next page you can note what charity you would
like to give your money to: [participants chose how much to give by using a slider with options
from $0-50]

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 74

Appendix C: Study 2 Pretest Materials
______________________________________________________________________________
General Directions
In this task you have been randomly paired with another person, whom we will refer to as the
“other person.” This other person is someone you do not know and will remain mutually
anonymous. All of your choices are completely confidential. You will be making a series of
decisions about distributing money between you and this other person. For each of the following
questions, please choose the distribution you prefer most, and please note that the amount of
money shown in each question is in U.S. cents. You can only make one choice for each question.
One of these questions will be randomly chosen, and your answer to this question will determine
how much bonus money you and the other person will receive. We won’t tell you which question
is randomly chosen though, so you should answer each question as if your choice on this
question will determine how much money you and the other person will receive.
There are no right or wrong answers, this is all about personal preferences.
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
One Last Thing...

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: IN ORDER TO MAKE SURE YOU TAKE TIME TO THINK
ABOUT YOUR DECISIONS, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO MOVE TO THE NEXT
QUESTION UNTIL AT LEAST 10 SECONDS HAVE PASSED, SO TAKE YOUR TIME!

(Time Constraint Condition)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One Last Thing...

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: IN ORDER TO SPEED UP THIS HIT, YOU WILL ONLY
HAVE 5 SECONDS TO MAKE YOUR DECISIONS FOR THESE QUESTIONS. THERE
WON'T BE A TIMER TELLING YOU HOW LONG YOU HAVE LEFT, SO YOU'LL JUST
NEED TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.
Which of the following is true?
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 75

-In what follows, in order to speed up this HIT, you will have 5 seconds at most to make your
decision.
In what follows, in order to speed up this HIT, you will have 2 seconds at most to make your
decision.
In what follows, in order to speed up this HIT, you will have 10 seconds at most to make your
decision.
In what follows, in order to make sure you take your time to make your decision, you will have
at least 30 seconds before you can move to the next question.
In what follows, in order to make sure you take your time to make your decision, you will have
at least 10 seconds before you can move to the next question.
In what follows, in order to make sure you take your time to make your decision, you will have
at least 45 seconds before you can move to the next question.
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Practice Decision #1

SELF OTHER
0 100

5 95
10 90
15 85
20 80
25 75
30 70
35 65
40 60
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Do you understand how this works?
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 76

Please note that if this was one of the real questions, choosing this option means that you would
receive [0/5/10/15/20/25/30/35/40] cents and your partner would receive
[100/95/90/85/80/75/70/65/60] cents (if this was the randomly selected question).

--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Practice Decision #2

SELF OTHER
40 60
45 55
50 50
55 45
60 40
65 35
70 30
75 25
80 20
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Do you understand how this works?

Please note that if this was one of the real questions, choosing this option means that you would
receive [40/45/50/55/60/65/70/75/80] cents and your partner would receive
[60/55/50/45/40/35/30/25/20] cents (if this was the randomly selected question).
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 77

Do you feel like you understand how this works? If you do not select the "yes" option below, we
will send you back to the directions page. Please remember that the size of your bonus will likely
be influenced by how well you understand how this works!
Yes
No
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Ok that's the end of the practice questions. Now the next 5 questions are your real questions -
your answers to these questions will determine how much money you and the other person
receive.
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------

Decision Page

SELF OTHER
100 90
99 91
98 93
96 94
95 95
94 96
93 98
91 99
90 100
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 78

Decision Page

SELF OTHER
15 85
26 81
36 76
47 72
58 68
68 63
79 59
89 54
100 50
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
100 90
96 91
93 93
89 94
85 95
81 96
78 98
74 99
70 100
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 79

--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------

Decision Page

SELF OTHER
50 100
56 94
63 88
69 81
75 75
81 69
88 63
94 56
100 50
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
15 100
26 89
36 79
47 68
58 58
68 47
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 80

79 36
89 26
100 15
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
50 100
54 89
59 79
63 68
68 58
72 47
76 36
81 26
85 15
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
50 100
54 98
59 96
63 94
68 93
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 81

72 91
76 89
81 87
85 85
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
15 100
26 94
36 88
47 81
58 75
68 69
79 63
89 56
100 50
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
90 100
91 94
93 88
94 81
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 82

95 75
96 69
98 63
99 56
100 50
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
100 50
94 56
88 63
81 69
75 75
69 81
63 88
56 94
50 100
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
100 50
89 54
79 59
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 83

68 63
58 68
47 72
36 76
26 81
15 85
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
70 100
74 99
78 98
81 96
85 95
89 94
93 93
96 91
100 90
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
70 100
74 96
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 84

78 93
81 89
85 85
89 81
93 78
96 74
100 70
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
100 70
94 74
88 78
81 81
75 85
69 89
63 93
56 96
50 100
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
85 85
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 85

81 87
76 89
72 91
68 93
63 94
59 96
54 98
50 100
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
100 50
99 56
98 63
96 69
95 75
94 81
93 88
91 94
90 100
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 86

100 70
99 74
98 78
96 81
95 85
94 89
93 93
91 96
90 100
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
50 100
56 96
63 93
69 89
75 85
81 81
88 78
94 74
100 70
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 87

Decision Page

SELF OTHER
100 90
94 91
88 93
81 94
75 95
69 96
63 98
56 99
50 100
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
50 100
56 94
63 88
69 81
75 75
81 69
88 63
94 56
100 50
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 88

--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------

Decision Page

SELF OTHER
100 50
98 54
96 59
94 63
93 68
91 72
89 76
87 81
85 85
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
100 50
98 54
96 59
94 63
93 68
91 72
89 76
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 89

87 81
85 85
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
85 85
87 81
89 76
91 72
93 68
94 63
96 59
98 54
100 50
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
70 100
74 94
78 88
81 81
85 75
89 69
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 90

93 63
96 56
100 50
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision Page

SELF OTHER
85 15
81 26
76 36
72 47
68 58
63 68
59 79
54 89
50 100

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 91

Appendix D: Study Materials for Study 2 and Study 3
______________________________________________________________________________

General Directions
In this task you have been randomly paired with another person, whom we will refer to as the
“other person.” This other person is someone you do not know and will remain mutually
anonymous. All of your choices are completely confidential. You will be making a series of
decisions about distributing money between you and this other person. For each of the following
questions, please choose the distribution you prefer most, and please note that the amount of
money shown in each question is in U.S. cents. You can only make one choice for each question.
One of these questions will be randomly chosen, and your answer to this question will determine
how much bonus money you and the other person will receive. We won’t tell you which question
is randomly chosen though, so you should answer each question as if your choice on this
question will determine how much money you and the other person will receive.
There are no right or wrong answers, this is all about personal preferences.
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
One Last Thing...

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: IN ORDER TO MAKE SURE YOU TAKE TIME TO THINK
ABOUT YOUR DECISIONS, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO MOVE TO THE NEXT
QUESTION UNTIL AT LEAST 10 SECONDS HAVE PASSED, SO TAKE YOUR TIME!

(Time Constraint Condition)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One Last Thing...

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: IN ORDER TO SPEED UP THIS HIT, YOU WILL ONLY
HAVE 5 SECONDS TO MAKE YOUR DECISIONS FOR THESE QUESTIONS. THERE
WON'T BE A TIMER TELLING YOU HOW LONG YOU HAVE LEFT, SO YOU'LL JUST
NEED TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 92

Which of the following is true?
-In what follows, in order to speed up this HIT, you will have 5 seconds at most to make your
decision.
In what follows, in order to speed up this HIT, you will have 2 seconds at most to make your
decision.
In what follows, in order to speed up this HIT, you will have 10 seconds at most to make your
decision.
In what follows, in order to make sure you take your time to make your decision, you will have
at least 30 seconds before you can move to the next question.
In what follows, in order to make sure you take your time to make your decision, you will have
at least 10 seconds before you can move to the next question.
In what follows, in order to make sure you take your time to make your decision, you will have
at least 45 seconds before you can move to the next question.
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Practice Decision #1

SELF OTHER
1 100
2
5 95
10 90
15 85
20 80
25 75
30 70
35 65
40 60
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 93

Do you understand how this works?

Please note that if this was one of the real questions, choosing this option means that you would
receive [0/5/10/15/20/25/30/35/40] cents and your partner would receive
[100/95/90/85/80/75/70/65/60] cents (if this was the randomly selected question).

--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Practice Decision #2

SELF OTHER
40 60
45 55
50 50
55 45
60 40
65 35
70 30
75 25
80 20
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Do you understand how this works?

Please note that if this was one of the real questions, choosing this option means that you would
receive [40/45/50/55/60/65/70/75/80] cents and your partner would receive
[60/55/50/45/40/35/30/25/20] cents (if this was the randomly selected question).
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 94

Do you feel like you understand how this works? If you do not select the "yes" option below, we
will send you back to the directions page. Please remember that the size of your bonus will likely
be influenced by how well you understand how this works!
Yes
No
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Ok that's the end of the practice questions. Now the next 5 questions are your real questions -
your answers to these questions will determine how much money you and the other person
receive.
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision #1

SELF OTHER
100 50
98 54
96 59
94 63
93 68
91 72
89 76
87 81
85 85
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision #2

SELF OTHER
85 15
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 95

81 26
76 36
72 47
68 58
63 68
59 79
54 89
50 100
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision #3

SELF OTHER
85 85
87 81
89 76
91 72
93 68
94 63
96 59
98 54
100 50
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 96

Decision #4

SELF OTHER
50 100
56 94
63 88
69 81
75 75
81 69
88 63
94 56
100 50
--------------------------------------------------- Page Break --------------------------------------------------
Decision #5

SELF OTHER
70 100
74 94
78 88
81 81
85 75
89 69
93 63
96 56
100 50
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 97

Appendix E: Study 4 Materials
______________________________________________________________________________
(Traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma Game Condition Information)
Please read the information below carefully and then answer the questions that follow.
Imagine you are given the following information:
"All participants in this study are randomly assigned to be either Player A or Player B. At the end
of this study, we will pair the answer of each Player A with the answer of one Player B, who has
also completed this study online. Some pairs of people will be chosen at random to receive bonus
money. The amount of bonus money each person in the chosen pairs receives will be determined
by the choices both members of the pair make in what we call 'The Money Game.' In 'The
Money Game' you must choose between cooperating with the other person in your group or not
cooperating with them, without knowing what the other person in your group has chosen or will
choose.
Here are the rules:
-If you and your partner both decide to cooperate, you will each receive $0.50 (if your pair is
randomly selected).
-If you and your partner both decide not to cooperate, you will each receive $0.30 (if your pair is
randomly selected).
-If you decide to cooperate and your partner decides not to cooperate, you will get nothing and
your partner will get $0.70 (if your pair is randomly selected).
-If you decide not to cooperate and your partner decides to cooperate, you will get $0.70 and
your partner will get nothing (if your pair is randomly selected).”
(Non-contingent Condition Information)
Please re-read the information below carefully and then answer the questions that follow.
Imagine you are given the following information:
"All participants in this study are randomly assigned to be either Player A or Player B. At the end
of this study, we will pair the answer of each Player A with the answer of one Player B, who has
also completed this study online. Some pairs of people will be chosen at random to receive bonus
money. The amount of bonus money each person in the chosen pairs receives will be determined
by the choices both members of the pair make in what we call 'The Money Game.' In 'The
Money Game' you must choose between cooperating with the other person in your group or not
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 98

cooperating with them, without knowing what the other person in your group has chosen or will
choose.
Here are the rules:
-If you and your partner both decide to cooperate, you will each receive $0.50 (if your pair is
randomly selected).
-If you and your partner both decide not to cooperate, you will each receive $0.30 (if your pair is
randomly selected).
-If you decide to cooperate and your partner decides not to cooperate, you will get nothing and
your partner will get $0.70 (if your pair is randomly selected).
-If you decide not to cooperate and your partner decides to cooperate, you will get $0.70 and
your partner will get nothing (if your pair is randomly selected)."
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
(Traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma Game Condition Information)
Now please answer the following questions:
In this situation, if you both decided to cooperate and your pair was randomly selected:
-you and your partner would each receive $0.30
-you and your partner would each receive $0.50
-you would get nothing and your partner would get $0.70
-you would get $0.70 and your partner would get nothing

In this situation, if you both decided not to cooperate and your pair was randomly selected:

-you and your partner would each receive $0.30
-you and your partner would each receive $0.50
-you would get nothing and your partner would get $0.70
-you would get $0.70 and your partner would get nothing

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 99

In this situation, if you decided to cooperate, your partner decided not to cooperate, and your pair
was randomly selected:

-you and your partner would each receive $0.30
-you and your partner would each receive $0.50
-you would get nothing and your partner would get $0.70
-you would get $0.70 and your partner would get nothing

In this situation, if you decided not to cooperate, your partner decided to cooperate, and your pair
was randomly selected:
-you and your partner would each receive $0.30
-you and your partner would each receive $0.50
-you would get nothing and your partner would get $0.70
-you would get $0.70 and your partner would get nothing
To what extent do you understand the rules of "The Money Game":
-I completely understand the rules of "The Money Game"
-I mostly understand the rules of "The Money Game"
-I sort of understand the rules of "The Money Game"
-I don't really understand the rules of "The Money Game"
-I don't at all understand the rules of "The Money Game"

(Non-contingent Condition Information)
Now please answer the following questions:
In this situation, if you were assigned to be Player A and decided to cooperate and your pair was
randomly selected:
-you and your partner would each receive $0.30 (1)
-you and your partner would each receive $0.50 (2)
-you would get $0.30 and your partner would get $0.70 (3)
-you would get $0.70 and your partner would get nothing (4)

In this situation, if you were assigned to be Player A and decided not to cooperate and your pair
was randomly selected:
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 100

-you and your partner would each receive $0.30 (1)
-you and your partner would each receive $0.50 (2)
-you would get $0.30 and your partner would get $0.70 (3)
-you would get $0.70 and your partner would get $0.30 (4)
To what extent do you understand the rules of "The Money Game":
-I completely understand the rules of "The Money Game" (1)
-I mostly understand the rules of "The Money Game" (2)
-I sort of understand the rules of "The Money Game" (3)
-I don't really understand the rules of "The Money Game" (4)
-I don't at all understand the rules of "The Money Game" (5)

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
(Time Constraint Condition)
VERY IMPORTANT: you only have 15 seconds to answer the question on the next page. There
will be a timer that counts down the amount of time you have left. Press the next button when
you are ready.
(Time Delay Condition)
VERY IMPORTANT: you will not be able to move past the next page until at least 30 seconds
pass. There will be a timer that counts down the amount of time you have left before you can
move to the next page. Press the next button when you are ready.
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
(Time Constraint Condition)
Now we're giving you the chance to actually play "The Money Game." The rules are the same as
the rules you just read, but now your decision will actually influence how much money you
receive if your pair is chosen.
PLEASE NOTE: you only have 15 seconds to make this decision, so hurry up!!!
-I choose to cooperate
-I choose not to cooperate

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 101

(Time Delay Condition)
Now we're giving you the chance to actually play "The Money Game." The rules are the same as
the rules you just read, but now your decision will actually influence how much money you
receive if your pair is chosen.

PLEASE NOTE: you must wait at least 30 seconds before you can continue to the next page, so
take your time!!!

-I choose to cooperate
-I choose not to cooperate

----------------------------------------------------Page Break----------------------------------------------

When it comes to politics, do you usually think of yourself as liberal, moderate, conservative, or
something else?

-Very Liberal
-Liberal
-Slightly Liberal
-Moderate/middle-of-the-road
-Slightly Conservative
-Conservative
-Very Conservative
-Don't know/not political
-Libertarian
-Other
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 102

To what extent is the following statement true of you? "My religious beliefs lie behind my whole
approach to life."
-Very true of me
-Very untrue of me
-True of me
-Somewhat true of me
-Somewhat untrue of me
-Untrue of me
What is your gender?
-Male
-Female
How old are you? _____

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 103

Appendix F: Study 5 Materials
______________________________________________________________________________

(Traditional Public Goods Game Condition)
Bonus Money
You are guaranteed to receive $0.50 for your participation in this study, but you can also receive
bonus money. How much bonus money you receive (if any) depends on the outcome of the
scenario described on the next page. The decision you make in this scenario will influence
(emphasis added) the amount of bonus money you receive, so it is very important that you read
the instructions thoroughly. If you earn bonus money, the amount of bonus money you earn will
be placed in your MTURK account.
(Non-contingent Public Goods Game Condition)
Bonus Money
You are guaranteed to receive $0.50 for your participation in this study, but you can also receive
bonus money. How much bonus money you receive (if any) depends on the outcome of the
scenario described on the next page.
The decision you make in this scenario will determine (emphasis added) the amount of bonus
money you receive, so it is very important that you read the instructions thoroughly. If you earn
bonus money, the amount of bonus money you earn will be placed in your MTURK account.
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
(Traditional Public Goods Game Condition)
You are starting with 40 cents of bonus money. You can keep this bonus money for yourself or
you can put some or all of this bonus money into a “money pot.” Any bonus money you place in
this “money pot” will be multiplied by two and then distributed evenly among you and three
other people who use this website.
Similarly, if any of these other people decide to put some or all of their bonus money into the
“money pot” this money will be multiplied by two and divided evenly among you and the three
other people.
IMPORTANT: Later in this study you will be asked questions about these rules, so only continue
to the next page when you know the rules.
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 104

(Non-contingent Public Goods Game Condition)
You are starting with 40 cents of bonus money. You can keep this bonus money for yourself or
you can put some or all of this bonus money into a “money pot.” Any bonus money you place in
this “money pot” will be multiplied by two and then distributed evenly among four other people
who use this website.

Therefore, the money you donate will be multiplied and given to four people, but you will not
get any of it back.

IMPORTANT: Later in this study you will be asked questions about these rules, so only continue
to the next page when you know the rules.

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------

(Both Conditions)

PLEASE NOTE: On the next page you will decide how much of your bonus money (if any at all)
you will place in the "money pot."

----------------------------------------------------Page Break---------------------------------------------------
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 105

(Both Conditions)
Below, please decide how many cents to place into the "money pot."
$0.00
$0.02
$0.04
$0.06
$0.08
$0.10
$0.12
$0.14
$0.16
$0.18
$0.20
$0.22
$0.24
$0.26
$0.28
$0.30
$0.32
$0.34
$0.36
$0.38
$0.40
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
Now, please answer the following questions about the rules of the game:
How much money should you have put into the money pot in order to ensure the highest amount
of bonus money for the other people affected by your decision?
$0.00
$0.02
$0.04
$0.06
$0.08
$0.10
$0.12
$0.14
$0.16
$0.18
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 106

$0.20
$0.22
$0.24
$0.26
$0.28
$0.30
$0.32
$0.34
$0.36
$0.38
$0.40
How much money should you have put into the money pot in order to ensure the highest amount
of bonus money for you?
$0.00
$0.02
$0.04
$0.06
$0.08
$0.10
$0.12
$0.14
$0.16
$0.18
$0.20
$0.22
$0.24
$0.26
$0.28
$0.30
$0.32
$0.34
$0.36
$0.38
$0.40
What were you told would happen to the money you put into the pot?
-It would be doubled and given back to you. Nobody else would get any of the money you
put in the pot.
-It would be doubled and split between you and three other people.
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 107

-It would be doubled and split between four other people. You would not get any of the
money back that you put in the pot.
-It would be doubled and given to charity.
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
To what extent have you participated in studies like this one before? (i.e. where you choose how
much to keep for yourself versus contributing to benefit others)
Very often
Often
A few times
Once or twice
Never
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
When it comes to politics, do you usually think of yourself as liberal, moderate, conservative, or
something else?
Very Liberal
Liberal
Slightly Liberal
Moderate/middle-of-the-road
Slightly Conservative
Conservative
Very Conservative
Don't know/not political
Libertarian
Other
To what extent is the following statement true of you?" My religious beliefs lie behind my whole
approach to life."
Very true of me
Very untrue of me
True of me
Somewhat true of me
Somewhat untrue of me
Untrue of me
What is your gender?
Male
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 108

Female
How old are you?
Currently, what country or countries are you a resident of?
What is your highest education level?
Some High School
Currently in High School
Completed High School
Some College/University
Currently in College/University
Completed College/University
Some Graduate/Professional School
Currently in Graduate/Professional School
Completed Graduate/Professional School

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 109

Appendix G: Study 6 Materials
______________________________________________________________________________

(Traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma Game Condition)
Please read the information below carefully and then answer the questions that follow.
Imagine you are given the following information:
"All participants in this study are randomly assigned to be either Player A or Player B. At the end
of this study, we will pair the answer of each Player A with the answer of one Player B, who has
also completed this study online. Some pairs of people will be chosen at random to receive bonus
money. The amount of bonus money each person in the chosen pairs receives will be determined
by the choices both members of the pair make in what we call 'The Money Game.' In 'The
Money Game' you must choose between Option One and Option Two, without knowing what the
other person in your group has chosen or will choose.
Here are the rules:
-If you and your partner both choose Option One, you will each receive $0.50 (if your pair is
randomly selected).

-If you and your partner both choose Option Two, you will each receive $0.30 (if your pair is
randomly selected).

-If you Choose Option One and your partner chooses Option Two, you will get nothing and your
partner will get $0.70 (if your pair is randomly selected).

-If you choose Option Two and your partner chooses Option One, you will get $0.70 and your
partner will get nothing (if your pair is randomly selected)."
(Non-contingent Prisoner’s Dilemma Game Condition)
Please read the information below carefully and then answer the questions that follow.
Imagine you are given the following information:
"All participants in this study are randomly assigned to be either Player A or Player B. At the end
of this study, we will pair the answer of each Player A with the answer of one Player B, who has
also completed this study online. Some pairs of people will be chosen at random to receive bonus
money. The amount of bonus money each person in the chosen pairs receives will be determined
by the choice Player A makes in what we call 'The Money Game.' In ‘The Money Game’ you
must choose between Option One and Option Two. Note that Player B's choice does not affect
the game.
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 110

Here are the rules:
-If you choose Option One, both players will receive $0.50 (if your pair is randomly selected).
-If you choose Option Two, you will receive $0.70 and the other participant will receive $0.30 (if
your pair is randomly selected)."
____________________________________________________________
Now please answer the following questions:
In this situation, if you were selected to be Player A, how selfish or generous (if at all) would it
be for you to choose Option One?

Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
Very generous
Extremely generous

In this situation, if you were selected to be Player A, how cooperative or uncooperative (if at all)
would it be for you to choose Option One?

Extremely cooperative
Very cooperative
Somewhat cooperative
Slightly cooperative
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 111

Neither cooperative nor uncooperative
Slightly uncooperative
Somewhat uncooperative
Very uncooperative
Extremely uncooperative

In this situation, if you were selected to be Player A, how cooperative or uncooperative (if at all)
would it be for you to choose Option Two?

Extremely cooperative
Very cooperative
Somewhat cooperative
Slightly cooperative
Neither cooperative nor uncooperative
Slightly uncooperative
Somewhat uncooperative
Very uncooperative
Extremely uncooperative
----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
(Traditional Public Goods Game Condition)
Please read the information below carefully and then answer the questions that follow.
Imagine you are given the following information:
Bonus Money
"You are guaranteed to receive $0.50 for your participation in this study, but you can also
receive bonus money. How much bonus money you receive (if any) depends on the outcome of
the scenario described on the next page.
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 112

The decision you make in this scenario will influence the amount of bonus money you receive,
so it is very important that you read the instructions thoroughly. If you earn bonus money, the
amount of bonus money you earn will be placed in your MTURK account."
Please also imagine you are given the following information:
Rules
"You are starting with 40 cents of bonus money. You can keep this bonus money for yourself or
you can put some or all of this bonus money into a "money pot." Any bonus money you place in
this "money pot" will be multiplied by two and then distributed evenly among you and three
other people who use this website.
Similarly, if any of these other people decide to put some or all of their bonus money into the
"money pot," this money will be multiplied by two and divided evenly among you and the three
other people.
IMPORTANT: Later in this study you will be asked questions about these rules, so only
continue to the next page when you know the rules."

(Non-contingent Public Goods Game Condition Information)
Please read the information below carefully and then answer the questions that follow.
Imagine you are given the following information:
Bonus Money
"You are guaranteed to receive $0.50 for your participation in this study, but you can also
receive bonus money. How much bonus money you receive (if any) depends on the outcome of
the scenario described on the next page.
The decision you make in this scenario will determine the amount of bonus money you receive,
so it is very important that you read the instructions thoroughly. If you earn bonus money, the
amount of bonus money you earn will be placed in your MTURK account."
Please also imagine you are given the following information:
Rules
"You are starting with 40 cents of bonus money. You can keep this bonus money for yourself or
you can put some or all of this bonus money into a "money pot." Any bonus money you place in
this "money pot" will be multiplied by two and then distributed evenly among four other people
who use this website.
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 113

Therefore, the money you donate will be multiplied and given to four people, but you will not
get any of it back.
IMPORTANT: Later in this study you will be asked questions about these rules, so only
continue to the next page when you know the rules.”
(Both Conditions)
Now please answer the following questions:
In this situation, how selfish or generous (if at all) would it be for you to not put money into the
pot?
Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
Very generous
Extremely generous

In this situation, how selfish or generous (if at all) would it be for you to put $0.20 into the pot?

Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 114

Somewhat generous
Very generous
Extremely generous
In this situation, how selfish or generous (if at all) would it be for you to put all $0.40 into the
pot?

Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
Very generous
Extremely generous

In this situation, how cooperative or uncooperative (if at all) would it be for you to not put
money into the pot?

Extremely cooperative
Very cooperative
Somewhat cooperative
Slightly cooperative
Neither cooperative nor uncooperative
Slightly uncooperative
Somewhat uncooperative
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 115

Very uncooperative
Extremely uncooperative

In this situation, how cooperative or uncooperative (if at all) would it be for you to put $0.20 into
the pot?

Extremely cooperative
Very cooperative
Somewhat cooperative
Slightly cooperative
Neither cooperative nor uncooperative
Slightly uncooperative
Somewhat uncooperative
Very uncooperative
Extremely uncooperative

In this situation, how cooperative or uncooperative (if at all) would it be for you to put all $0.40
into the pot?

Extremely cooperative
Very cooperative
Somewhat cooperative
Slightly cooperative
Neither cooperative nor uncooperative
Slightly uncooperative
Somewhat uncooperative
Very uncooperative
Extremely uncooperative

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 116

(Charitable Giving Scenario)

Imagine for a moment that you were given a random chance to win $50, but before you were told
whether you won the money or not you were also given the chance to give some of all of this
money to a charity of your choice if you were to win it.
In this situation, how selfish or generous (if at all) would it be for you to decide to not give any
of the $50 to charity if you won?
Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
Very generous
Extremely generous

In this situation, how selfish or generous (if at all) would it be for you to decide to give $25 of
the $50 to charity if you won it?

Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 117

Very generous
Extremely generous

In this situation, how selfish or generous (if at all) would it be for you to decide to give $30 of
the $50 to charity if you won it?

Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
Very generous
Extremely generous
In this situation, how selfish or generous (if at all) would it be for you to decide to give all of the
$50 to charity if you won it?
Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
Very generous
Extremely generous

How selfish or generous (if at all) would it be for you to eat pickles?
Extremely selfish
Very selfish
Somewhat selfish
Slightly selfish
Neither selfish nor generous
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 118

Slightly generous
Somewhat generous
Very generous
Extremely generous

How cooperative or uncooperative (if at all) would it be for you to eat pickles?
Extremely cooperative
Very cooperative
Somewhat cooperative
Slightly cooperative
Neither cooperative nor uncooperative
Slightly uncooperative
Somewhat uncooperative
Very uncooperative
Extremely uncooperative

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 119

Appendix H: Study 8b Materials

How Much Work Do You
Want To Do?

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 120

This survey should take about 4 minutes to complete. However, in addition to completing this 4
minute task, you'll also decide how much extra work (if any) you'll do after this task is complete.
No matter how much work you choose to do on this survey, you will get $0.50, but we will give
certain amounts of money to ANOTHER mechanical turk worker (not you) depending on how
much additional work YOU agree to perform.

In what follows, we will present you with six "decision pages" that will each have two options -
for example, we might ask you to choose between you doing 5 minutes of work in which case we
will give another mechanical turk worker $0.10, or you doing 10 minutes of work in which case
we will give another mechanical turk worker $0.25. Your choice on ONE of these decisions will
we will give another mechanical turk worker $0.25. Your choice on ONE of these decisions will
determine how much extra work you will do after you make all of your choices.

The format for the decisions will always look something like this:

 Work 5 minutes /// Give $0.10
 Work 0 minutes /// Give $0.00

In this case, if you chose "Work 5 minutes /// Give $0.10" and this decision was selected to
determine how much extra work you do, this would mean you would do work for 5 extra minutes
in order to give another worker $0.10 (instead of doing no work and giving no money to the
other person). Remember: No matter what you choose, YOU will still receive the same amount
of money for your work - you'll just be doing more or less work and the other person will be
getting more or less money.

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------

Please note that one of your six decisions really will be selected, and the selected decision really
will determine how much extra work you are assigned to complete (as well as how much money
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 121

another person receives). So that we can be sure that you understand this, please choose the
correct statement below:

 I understand that this is all entirely hypothetical and my decisions on the task that follows
will not have any influence on how much work I must complete in this HIT.
 I understand that this is all entirely hypothetical and my decisions on the task that follows
will not have any influence on how much money someone else receives.
 I understand that one of my six decisions will actually influence how much extra work I
complete and how much money someone else receives.

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------

(Time Constraint Condition)

Please note that you will have only 3 seconds to make each of your decisions. Once 3 seconds
have passed, you will no longer be able to answer the question, so make sure you make each
decision as quickly as possible!

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------
(Time Constraint Condition)
So that we're sure you understand how this works and so you can get used to making your final
decisions within 3 seconds, we're first going to give you feedback on three
practice decisions. THAT SAID, PLEASE NOTE THAT THE FIRST PRACTICE DECISION
WILL NOT INCLUDE A 3 SECOND TIME CONSTRAINT.

(Time Delay Condition)
Please note that we want you to take your time when making your decisions. Therefore, you will
have at least 6 seconds to make each of your decisions. Once 6 seconds have passed, you will be
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 122

able to move to the next question if you choose, but until six seconds pass you will not be able to
move on, so take your time!

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------

(Time Delay Condition)

So that we're sure you understand how this works and so you can get used to making your final
decisions after at least 6 seconds have passed, we're first going to give you feedback on three
practice decisions.

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------

PRACTICE #1 Please choose between the options below:

 Work 10 minutes /// Give $0.25
 Work 0 minutes /// Give $0.00

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------

(Example of feedback provided to participants for all practice decisions)

You chose the option "Work 10 minutes /// Give $0.25" This means that you choose to give
$0.25 to the other person by working for 10 minutes instead of not earning them anything by
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 123

not doing additional work. If this was not a practice decision, and if this was the decision
that was selected to determine how much work you must do, you would actually work for an
additional 10 minutes and someone else would actually receive $0.25.

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------

PRACTICE #2 Please choose between the options below:

 Work 10 minutes /// Give $0.50
 Work 20 minutes /// Give $1.00

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------

PRACTICE #3 Please choose between the options below:

 Work 5 minutes /// Give $0.05
 Work 2 minutes /// Give $1.00

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------

Ok next it's time to make your six ACTUAL decisions, one of which will ACTUALLY
determine how much work you must do (and how much money someone else receives)! Please
SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 124

note that after each decision you'll also be asked five follow up questions. You will be able to
complete these follow-up questions as quickly or as slowly as you'd like.

Which do you choose?
 Work 1 minute /// Give $0.33
 Work 0 minutes /// Give $0.00

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------

(Items that followed each decision, with example of response options that followed each item)

Follow-up Questions

In this situation, to what extent would it have benefitted you if you chose the option that would
have required you to do the smaller amount of work?

Very little Very much
0 1 2 3 4 5 6

In this situation, to what extent would it have benefitted the other person if you chose the option
that would have allowed you to earn them the larger amount of money?

In this situation, how much did you care about choosing the option that would require you to do
the smaller amount of work?

In this situation, how much did you care about choosing the option that would allow you to earn
the larger amount of money for the other person?

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 125

In this situation, how conflicted did you feel when deciding which option to choose?

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------

Which do you choose?
 Work 5 minutes /// Give $0.70
 Work 0 minutes /// Give $0.00

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------

Which do you choose?
 Work 11 minutes /// Give $1.50
 Work 0 minutes /// Give $0.00

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------

Which do you choose?
 Work 11 minutes /// Give $0.68
 Work 10 minutes /// Give $0.35

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------

Which do you choose?
 Work 17 minutes /// Give $1.35
 Work 10 minutes /// Give $0.65

----------------------------------------------------Page Break--------------------------------------------------

SELFLESSNESS TAKES TIME 126

Which do you choose?
 Work 8 minutes /// Give $0.00
 Work 4 minutes /// Give $0.15

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Asset Metadata

Creator Meindl, Peter W. (author)

Core Title Selflessness takes time: altruistic (but not cooperative) prosocial behavior increases with decision time

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Psychology

Publication Date 07/01/2018

Defense Date 05/09/2016

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag deliberation,intuition,moral motivation,OAI-PMH Harvest,prosociality

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Graham, Jesse (committee chair), Immordino-Yang, Mary Helen (committee member), Monterosso, John (committee member), Oyserman, Daphna (committee member), Wiltermuth, Scott (committee member)

Creator Email meindl@usc.edu,pmeindl@characterlab.org

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-261065

Unique identifier UC11280430

Identifier etd-MeindlPete-4495.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-261065 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-MeindlPete-4495.pdf

Dmrecord 261065

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Meindl, Peter W.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA