CoChat
Sign Up
PreprintCited by 5Nonprofit Sector and VolunteeringAging and Gerontology ResearchExperimental Behavioral Economics Studies

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 3 of the 3 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Are Smarter People Better Samaritans? Effect of Cognitive Abilities on Pro-Social Behaviors

Open access
Aranda, Luis, Siyaranamual, Martin Daniel·2014·SSRN Electronic Journal
DOI 10.2139/ssrn.2435818
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

This study investigates the link between cognitive abilities and civic engagement of older Europeans (aged 50), using waves two and three of the SHARE dataset. An instrumental variable approach is employed in an attempt to disentangle possible endogeneity issues arising between cognition and pro-social behaviors. In so doing, cognitive abilities are instrumented with the number of books in the respondent’s place of residence during childhood. The results advocate for the existence of a causal relationship running from cognition in old age to community engagement. Though contradicting standard theoretical predictions, this empirical finding is in line with mainline experimental results showing how participants with higher cognitive abilities tend to be less risk averse, and thus more willing to opt for a payoff-dominant action in a stag hunt game context more often.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.2139/ssrn.2435818

Cites

3 of 3 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Citations

Cites

Show all 3 references

Research works printed but not linked: 63

  1. R Abbott, 1998, Height as a marker of childhood development and late-life cognitive function: the Honolulu-Asia aging study, Pediatrics, 102, 602, 10.1542/peds.102.3.602 · DOI
  2. T Anderson, 1949, Estimation of the parameters of a single equation in a complete system of stochastic equations, The Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 20, 43, 10.1214/aoms/1177730090 · DOI
  3. J Andreoni, 1990, Impure altruism and donations to public goods: a theory of warm-glow giving, The economic journal, 100, 464, 10.2307/2234133 · DOI · Paper page
  4. D Andrews, 2008, Ecient two-sided nonsimilar invariant tests in IV regression with weak instruments, Journal of Econometrics, 146, 241, 10.1016/j.jeconom.2008.08.015 · DOI
  5. M Bacharach, 2006, Beyond individual choice, 10.1515/9780691186313 · DOI
  6. R Bekkers, 2006, Traditional and health-related philanthropy: The role of resources and personality, Social Psychology Quarterly, 69, 349, 10.1177/019027250606900404 · DOI
  7. R Bekkers, 2011, A literature review of empirical studies of philanthropy eight mechanisms that drive charitable giving, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 40, 924
  8. A Ben-Ner, 2004, Share and share alike? gender-pairing, personality, and cognitive ability as determinants of giving, Journal of Economic Psychology, 25, 581, 10.1016/s0167-4870(03)00065-5 · DOI
  9. L F Berkman, 2000, From social integration to health: Durkheim in the new millennium, Social Science & Medicine, 51, 843, 10.1016/s0277-9536(00)00065-4 · DOI · Paper page
  10. B D Bernheim, 2005, Behavioral public economics: Welfare and policy analysis with non-standard decision-makers, 10.3386/w11518 · DOI
  11. P Bra�as-Garza, 2008, Math skills and risk attitudes, Economics Letters, 99, 332, 10.1016/j.econlet.2007.08.008 · DOI
  12. H Brandst�tter, 2002, Personality in dictator and ultimatum games, Central European Journal of Operations Research, 10, 191
  13. E Brown, 1992, Gifts of money and gifts of time estimating the e?ects of tax prices and available time, Journal of Public Economics, 47, 321, 10.1016/0047-2727(92)90032-b · DOI
  14. G Brunello, 2012, Books are forever: Early life conditions, education and lifetime income, 10.2139/ssrn.2054407 · DOI
  15. C F Camerer, 2004, A cognitive hierarchy model of games, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 119, 861, 10.1162/0033553041502225 · DOI
  16. A Case, 2008, Height, Health and Cognitive Function at Older Ages, American Economic Review, 98, 463, 10.1257/aer.98.2.463 · DOI
  17. A Case, 2008, Stature and status: Height, ability, and labor market outcomes, Journal of Political Economy, 116, 499, 10.1086/589524 · DOI
  18. G Charness, 2009, Cooperation and competition in intergenerational experiments in the field and the laboratory, The American Economic Review, 99, 956, 10.1257/aer.99.3.956 · DOI
  19. D Christelis, 2010, Cognitive abilities and portfolio choice, European Economic Review, 54, 18, 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2009.04.001 · DOI · Paper page
  20. M Costa-Gomes, 2001, Cognition and behavior in normal-form games: An experimental study, Econometrica, 69, 1193, 10.1111/1468-0262.00239 · DOI
  21. F Cunha, 2007, The technology of skill formation, American Economic Review, 97, 31, 10.1257/aer.97.2.31 · DOI
  22. F Cunha, 2010, Estimating the technology of cognitive and noncognitive skill formation, Econometrica, 78, 883, 10.3386/w15664 · DOI
  23. K Denny, 2003, The e?ects of human capital on social capital: a crosscountry analysis, 10.1920/wp.ifs.2003.0316 · DOI
  24. M Dewey, 2005, Mental Health, Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe -First Results from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe MEA Eigenverlag, 108
  25. K Finlay, 2013, weakiv: Weakinstrument-robust tests and confidence intervals for instrumental-variable (IV) estimation of linear, probit and tobit models
  26. L Fratiglioni, 2004, An active and socially integrated lifestyle in late life might protect against dementia, The Lancet Neurology, 3, 343, 10.1016/s1474-4422(04)00767-7 · DOI · Paper page
  27. L Fratiglioni, 2004, An active and socially integrated lifestyle in late life might protect against dementia, The Lancet Neurology, 3, 343, 10.1016/s1474-4422(04)00767-7 · DOI · Paper page
  28. S Frederick, 2005, Cognitive reflection and decision making, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19, 25, 10.1257/089533005775196732 · DOI · Paper page
  29. M Gilbert, 1989, On social facts
  30. D A Glei, 2005, Participating in social activities helps preserve cognitive function: an analysis of a longitudinal, population-based study of the elderly, International Journal of Epidemiology, 34, 864, 10.1093/ije/dyi049 · DOI
  31. L Hansen, 1982, Large sample properties of generalized method of moments estimators, Econometrica, 50, 1029, 10.2307/1912775 · DOI · Paper page
  32. Y Hao, 2008, Productive activities and psychological well-being among older adults, The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 63, 64, 10.1093/geronb/63.2.s64 · DOI
  33. J C Harsanyi, 1988, A general theory of equilibrium selection in games
  34. S M Hauser, 2000, Education, ability, and civic engagement in the contemporary united states, Social Science Research, 29, 556, 10.1006/ssre.2000.0681 · DOI
  35. J Heckman, 2012, Understanding the mechanisms through which an influential early childhood program boosted adult outcomes, 10.3386/w18581 · DOI · Paper page
  36. D S Hillygus, 2005, The missing link: Exploring the relationship between higher education and political engagement, Political Behavior, 27, 25, 10.1007/s11109-005-3075-8 · DOI
  37. D H Hodgson, 1967, Consequences of utilitarianism
  38. M Hollis, 1998, Trust within reason, 10.1017/CBO9780511612244 · DOI
  39. M Hollis, 1993, Rationality in action, Mind, 102, 1, 10.1093/mind/102.405.1 · DOI
  40. S L Hurley, 1989, Natural reasons
  41. R N James, 2011, Charitable giving and cognitive ability, International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 16, 70, 10.1002/nvsm.402 · DOI
  42. G Jones, 2006, Intelligence, human capital, and economic growth: a bayesian averaging of classical estimates (BACE) approach, Journal of Economic Growth, 11, 71, 10.1007/s10887-006-7407-2 · DOI
  43. D Kahneman, 1984, Choices, values, and frames, American psychologist, 39, 10.1037/0003-066x.39.4.341 · DOI · Paper page
  44. D Kahneman, 1986, Rational choice and the framing of decisions, Journal of business, 251
  45. F Kleibergen, 2006, Generalized reduced rank tests using the singular value decomposition, Journal of Econometrics, 133, 97, 10.1016/j.jeconom.2005.02.011 · DOI
  46. J Maurer, 2010, Height, education and later life cognition in Latin America and the Caribbean, Economic and Human Biology, 8, 168, 10.1016/j.ehb.2010.05.013 · DOI
  47. M Moreira, 2003, A conditional likelihood ratio test for structural models, Econometrica, 71, 1027, 10.1111/1468-0262.00438 · DOI · Paper page
  48. R Nagel, 1995, Unraveling in guessing games: An experimental study, The American Economic Review, 85, 1313
  49. J Oechssler, 2009, Cognitive abilities and behavioral biases, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 72, 147, 10.1016/j.jebo.2009.04.018 · DOI · Paper page
  50. D Read, 2000, Choice bracketing, Elicitation of Preferences, 171
  51. D Regan, 1980, Utilitarianism and cooperation, 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198246091.001.0001 · DOI
  52. J Rousseau, 1984, A Discourse on Inequality, Classics Series
  53. G Sabater-Grande, 2002, Accounting for risk aversion in repeated prisoners dilemma games: An experimental test, Journal of economic behavior & organization, 48, 37, 10.1016/s0167-2681(01)00223-2 · DOI
  54. L Samuelson, 2005, Foundations of human sociality: A review essay, Journal of Economic Literature, 43, 488, 10.1257/0022051054661549 · DOI
  55. A Smerilli, 2012, We-thinking and vacillation between frames: filling a gap in Bacharachs theory, Theory and decision, 73, 539, 10.1007/s11238-012-9294-7 · DOI
  56. D Staiger, 1997, Instrumental variables regression with weak instruments, Econometrica, 65, 557, 10.2307/2171753 · DOI · Paper page
  57. J H Stock, 2005, Testing for weak instruments in linear IV regression. Chapter 5 in Identification and Inference in Econometric Models: Essays in Honor of
  58. R Sugden, 1993, Thinking as a team: Toward an explanation of nonselfish behavior, Social Philosophy and Policy, 10, 69, 10.1017/s0265052500004027 · DOI
  59. R Sugden, 2003, The logic of team reasoning, Philosophical Explorations, 16, 165, 10.1080/10002003098538748 · DOI
  60. P Wiepking, 2009, Resources that make you generous: Effects of social and human resources on charitable giving, Social Forces, 87, 1973, 10.1353/sof.0.0191 · DOI
  61. J Wooldridge, 2001, Applications of Generalized Method Moments Estimation, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 15, 87, 10.1257/jep.15.4.87 · DOI
  62. J Wooldridge, 2002, Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data
  63. M V Zunzunegui, 2003, Social networks, social integration, and social engagement determine cognitive decline in community-dwelling spanish older adults, The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 58, 93, 10.1093/geronb/58.2.s93 · DOI · Paper page

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 5

Metadata

Authors
Aranda, L., & Siyaranamual, M. D.
Corresponding author
Aranda, Luis
ORCID
Siyaranamual, Martin Daniel
Venue
SSRN Electronic Journal
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2014
ISSN
1556-5068 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.2139/ssrn.2435818
OpenAlex
W1527636711
Cited by
5
References
3
Citations by year
2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 2
Type
posted content
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Aging and Gerontology Research
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
Keywords
cognitive ability, prosocial behavior, citizen participation, older adults, community participation, risk aversion, stag hunt, payoff dominance, SHARE survey, endogeneity

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review

How to cite

Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.

This page
CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Are Smarter People Better Samaritans? Effect of Cognitive Abilities on Pro-Social Behaviors. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.2139/ssrn.2435818
The paper
Aranda, L., & Siyaranamual, M. D. (2014). Are Smarter People Better Samaritans? Effect of Cognitive Abilities on Pro-Social Behaviors. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2435818