Social Impact Limits Spontaneous Selfishness in Resource Allocations

Studying spontaneous behavior offers to answer the fundamental question of whether humans are inherently selfish or other-regarding. Past research attempting to uncover whether people are spontaneously selfish by examining how they behave when cognitive resources have been depleted shows mixed findings. Some research suggests that cognitive depletion makes people more selfish while other research finds that cognitive depletion makes people less selfish. We resolve this inconsistency by proposing and showing that the effect of cognitive depletion on resource distribution is moderated by whether or not the decision has an impact on others. When one’s actions have no clear effect on others, cognitive depletion makes people more selfish. When their actions have an impact on others, cognitive depletion makes people less selfish. Our results support the view that people are inherently selfish in nonsocial situations but not in social ones.