Lost letter measure of variation in altruistic behaviour in 20 neighbourhoods

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 7; no. 8; p. e43294
• Main Authors: Holland, Jo, Silva, Antonio S, Mace, Ruth
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 15.08.2012; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Affluence; Altruism; Anthropology; Behavior; Biology; Deprivation; Earth Sciences; Economic indicators; Experiments; Female; Human behavior; Human populations; Humans; Impulsivity; Income; London; Male; Odds Ratio; Population density; Populations; Poverty; Probability; Public opinion; Residence Characteristics; Rich people; Social and Behavioral Sciences; Socioeconomic Factors; Surveys and Questionnaires; Variation; London; United Kingdom > UK
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0043294

Altruistic behaviour varies across human populations and this variation is likely to be partly explained by variation in the ecological context of the populations. We hypothesise that area level socio-economic characteristics will determine the levels of altruism found in individuals living in an area and we use a lost letter experiment to measure altruism across 20 neighbourhoods with a wide range of income deprivation scores in London, UK. The results show a strong negative effect of neighbourhood income deprivation on altruistic behaviour, with letters dropped in the poorest neighbourhoods having 91% lower odds of being returned than letters dropped in the wealthiest neighbourhoods. We suggest that measures of altruism are strongly context dependant.