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Hearing prosocial stories increases Hadza hunter-gatherers’ generosity in an economic game
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Description: Folk stories featuring prosocial content are ubiquitous across cultures. One explanation for the ubiquity of such stories is that stories teach people about the local socioecology, including norms of prosociality, and stories featuring prosocial content increase generosity in listeners. We tested this hypothesis in a sample of 185 Hadza hunter-gatherers. We read to participants a story in which the main character either swims with another Hadza or rescues him from drowning. After hearing the story, participants played a dictator game with meat sticks and then were given a recall test of facts presented in the story. There was moderate evidence for a small effect of the prosocial story: participants who heard the prosocial stories gave an estimated 9.3% more than those who heard the control story. This effect however was smaller than demographic associations with generosity, including sex, marital status, and region of residence. There was no evidence that the prosocial story was more easily recalled than the control story. These results provide support for the hypothesis that prosocial stories can increase prosociality in listeners, though the effect of hearing a single story is small.