Reactions to third-party inequality were investigated in three experiments. In Experiment 1, 52 undergraduates allocated money between themselves and two others. Preferences for equal and unequal distributions were also rated. The results show that people are averse to inequalities between...

We study the impact of cognitive load in dictator games to test two conflicting views of moral behavior. Are social preferences skindeep in the sense that they are the result of humans’ cognitive reasoning while the natural instinct is selfish, or is rather the natural instinct to share fairly...

It has recently been argued that giving is spontaneous while greed is calculated (Rand et al. 2012). If greed is calculated we would expect that cognitive load, which is assumed to reduce the influence of cognitive processes, should affect greed. In this paper we study both charitable giving and...