An investigation on altruism within framework of behavioral economics

Mainstream economics views the individual as the consistent actors who are selfinterested and egoist, have unlimited willpower and control power, predict the future accurately in the notion of economic man. Rather many sciences especially psychology evaluate the individual as other-regarding and social people who live in the community on the contrary to the perspective of mainstream economics. Behavioral economics that investigates the axioms of mainstream economics which deviates from reality, with psychology in a multidisciplinary way, exhibits other regarding social preferences and points out the altruistic nature of the individual. Altruism is an ancient discussion in many disciplines, as well as entering between the issue of economics by behavioral economics. The behaviours which result in the benefit of others at the actor's own expense, extend to the foundations of institutions in real life, while the rationality of main stream economics refuses it. Within the scope of the study, while illuminating the altruistic decision-making process of individuals who make decisions that do not comply with the economic man, social psychology which is another branch examining the other regarding behaviors, is utilized. In addition to the ultimatum game in which the subjects decided to allocate money, the social value orientation scale from social psychology was also used. In the thesis, empathy, which is thought to be the reason for pro-social behaviors, is examined in an emotional and cognitive dimension with the basic empathy scale, and the cognitive experiential self-theory scale that focuses on the decision-making process in the same two dimensions is used. The altruistic preferences of the individuals were tested by means of ultimatum game and psychometric scales using the experiment-questionnaire method. As a result of the game, it was seen that the subjects shared 35% of the amount in their hands, while the shares below this number were rejected in a similar way to other practices in the world. It was observed that the actor behaved in the opposite way of economic man, but ıt could not be reached the exact findings about psychological motives underlying the behaviors deviate from the axioms. On the other hand, inverse relationship between monetary division and conformism is established and the responds to the monetary division offers are affected by positive reciprocity, antisocial behaviors and partly by religion, empathy and values.