Strategically prosocial: Using acts of kindness to secure more valuable interaction partners

For cooperative exchange, people prefer to connect to others with prosocial rather than selfish reputations. Anticipating this, individuals may display acts of kindness, for example by donating to charity, not only because of (a) their ‘genuine’ prosocial values but also because of (b) self-serving strategic considerations – especially when differences in economic ability make certain partners more valuable for future cooperation. We performed two incentivized, pre-registered experiments (total N = 560) to examine these two possible reasons for acting prosocially and to test whether and how subsequent cooperation differs when social ties are formed on the basis of prosocial values or more self-serving strategic reasons. In both experiments, participants could display acts of kindness (donations to the Red Cross in Study 1 and in a dictator game in Study 2), after which pairs were formed among the two highest donors and among the two lowest donors to engage in a two-person public goods game. We measured participants' social value orientation and manipulated participants' economic ability to donate and cooperate by varying endowments between participants (Study 1) and whether donations impacted social tie formation (Study 2). Results show that when everyone had the same economic ability, differences in social values were associated with acts of kindness and tie formation. When introducing differences in economic ability, however, acts of kindness no longer reflected differences in social values but, consistent with self-serving strategic considerations, reflected differences in underlying economic ability. Our findings help explain the circumstances under which acts of kindness reflect genuine underlying social values and when they are used more strategically to secure valuable interaction partners, and how social stratification and inequality may amplify when individuals differ in economic abilities. • We test whether prosocial acts of kindness during social tie formation are genuine or strategic. • When individuals are equally wealthy, acts of kindness reflect genuine pro-social values. • When individuals differ in wealth, acts of kindness reflect economic ability. • Individuals reduce their acts of kindness when these no longer impact social tie formation. • Individuals use acts of kindness to form connections for future cooperation with wealthy others.