
Altruism on Amazon Mechanical Turk - mariorz
http://blog.doloreslabs.com/2010/01/altruism-on-amazon-mechanical-turk/
======
bd
I wonder if results would be different if cooperation would result in a _loss_
(as opposed to merely smaller reward).

Psychologically, it's much easier to forgo additional reward than to give up
what you _already_ have.

People have tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion>

------
jacquesm
That's a very interesting study.

Preachers have known this for years of course, which is why any request to
donate is always preceded by a healthy reminder on the benefits of altruism.

