Altruism, Emotions, and Risk Preference

Participants are randomly assigned to watch one of two short videos. The treatment video is designed to activate an altruism/prosocial mindset, while the control video is neutral in content. All participants then complete the same follow-up survey measures and incentivized decision tasks.

Treatment arm (Altruism prime): Participants view a 57-second altruism-inducing video clip depicting prosocial content intended to activate an altruistic mindset.
Control arm: Participants view a 57-second neutral video clip matched in length and format but without prosocial content.
Implementation: Individual-level random assignment (1:1) is implemented by the Qualtrics randomizer. Immediately after the video, participants complete two instructional attention checks (“Please select Correct”; “Please type 20”). Participants then report state emotions on 0–100 sliders (anger, fear, happiness, sadness, guilt; order randomized). Before the risk elicitation begins, participants receive the incentive rule. Risk preferences are measured using (i) a 0–10 self-reported general willingness to take risks and (ii) a five-question monetary staircase lottery module. After the risk task, participants answer. altruism items (willingness to give to good causes 0–10; hypothetical €1,000 donation amount) to assess persistence of the prime and work as manipulation check, followed by demographics and personality traits.
Incentives: Participants receive a fixed participation payment. In addition, 10% of participants are randomly selected to receive a bonus based on the risk task. For selected participants, one staircase decision is randomly selected for payment, and the bonus equals 1% of the realized monetary payoff from that selected decision (e.g., €100 payoff → €1 bonus). The incentive rule is shown immediately before the risk task.

2026-01-19

2026-01-21

Average of standardized subjective risk (0–10) and standardized staircase risk measure.

We form a weighted average of our two measures of risk tolerance using weights of 47.3% for self-assessed risk tolerance and 52.7% for the lottery-based task, with the weights coming from the Global Preference Survey of Falk et al. (2016, 2018)

State emotions measured happiness, fear, anger, guilt.
Altruism Index

Emotion variables are recorded on 0–100 sliders. Based on Meier, (2022), a “net happiness” index will be constructed as ((Happiness − Sadness)/2) + 50 to retain a 0–100 range. The post-task altruism index follows the Falk et al.(2016, 2018) GPS (willingness to give and hypothetical donation).

Online controlled trial with two arms. Participants are randomly assigned (1:1) to watch either an altruism-inducing video or a neutral control video. After exposure, participants report state emotions and then complete standardized measures of risk preferences, including a self-reported risk item and a monetary lottery-based staircase task. The primary outcome is the risk preference index from the staircase task and subjective risk measure; emotions are analyzed as mediators.

Individual-level random assignment is implemented by Qualtrics’ built-in randomizer with equal probability (1:1) to the altruism video prime or the neutral control video.

Individual participant (online subject).

No

1000 individuals (individual-level randomization; no higher-level clusters)

1000 participants

Altruism group: 500 participants; Control: 500 participants

Planned sample size is N = 1,000 (500 per arm). Using the pilot estimate for the primary composite risk index (pooled SD ≈ 0.735), the minimum detectable effect (two-sided α = 0.05, 80% power) is equals approximately 0.125 SD.