Political Science & International Relations Seminar Series

SABANCI UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Political Science and International Relations Program

BROWN BAG SEMINARS

"The Impact of Exposure to Armed Conflict on Altruistic Preferences"

by

Arzu Kıbrıs (University of Warwick and Sabancı University FASS network faculty member)

March 2, 2022 

Time: 01:00 PM

FASS 2034

Join Zoom Meeting: https://sabanciuniv.zoom.us/j/92915915594

  Meeting ID: 929 1591 5594

Abstract: The study of the effects of armed conflicts on prosocial behavior has so far been constrained by possible selection biases which limits the establishment of causality and by the simultaneous activation of mechanisms at both the individual and societal levels which then makes it difficult, if not impossible, to attribute the observed changes in behavior to changes in preferences. In this paper we use a novel experimental setting that allows us to overcome these constraints and identify causal effects that transmit through changes in individual preferences, if any. We conduct an incentive-compatible lab-in-the-field experiment with a large representative sample in a natural experiment setting to study how exposure to armed conflict affects altruistic behavior of individuals. Our results indicate that exposure to armed conflict does not lead to an overall change in altruistic preferences, but that those individuals who directly experience traumatic events of armed violence display out-group discrimination. Our findings also have important implications for the charitable giving literature. We show that while total donations increase as the price of donations decreases, out-of-pocket donations, however, decrease along with price.