The Emergence of Reciprocal Altruism under Uncertainty: An Empirical Test of Commitment in 2008 Financial Crisis

• In Event: 447 - Section on Social Psychology Roundtable Session (co-sponsored with Section on Sociology of Emotions)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Altruism

Abstract

Several social psychology research support the possibility of the emergence of commitment under uncertainty and many economic sociologists stress out the effect of uncertainty on the economic transactions. Linking social psychology and economic sociology research, Cook argues that commitment for closed trust networks will emerge under uncertainty in the real world. She suggests the changed pattern of credit transactions in Eastern European countries and Russia. However, Cook`s examples are the cases of changing from uncertainty to certainty. In order to confirm the possibility of emergence, it is needed to study the change from certainty to uncertainty in the real world. Using GSS panel data 2006 and 2008, this research tests the possibility of the emergence of commitments. Institutional failure in Financial crisis has changed transactions uncertain than before. Under the condition, the importance of commitment and reputation system can emerge. This means that to some people, altruistic behaviors for reputation can have been more important than before. Multinominal logistic regression result shows the relationship between institutional uncertainty and more positive opinion about altruism. Respondents who lost confidence of institutions are highly likely to consider altruism more important than before. However, lower status respondents are likely to consider altruism less important before, even though loss of confidences has the effect. This is because lower status value could not make a chance to participate in valuable closed networks to reduce uncertainty. This research support the Cook`s theoretical idea and the possibility of the emergence of commitments under uncertainty in the real world.

Author

• Yunsub Lee, University of North Carolina-Charlotte