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\title{Short-sighted greed? Focusing on the future promotes reputation-based generosity}

\author{
Hallgeir Sjåstad\thanks{Norwegian School of Economics and FAIR Insight
  Team, SNF --- Centre for Applied Research at NHH. E-mail: Hallgeir.Sjastad@snf.no.}
}

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\begin{document} % goes here

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\newcommand{\jhead}{Judgment and Decision Making, Vol.~14, No.~2}
\newcommand{\jdate}{March 2019}
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  \jdate \hfill Future-oriented generosity \qquad}
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\href{\jref}{\jhead}, \jdate, pp.\ 199-213
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\begin{onecolabstract}
%\end{latexonly}
  Long-term thinking and voluntary resource sharing are two distinctive
  traits of human nature. Across three experiments (N=1,082), I propose a
  causal connection: Sometimes people are generous \textit{because} they think about
  the future. Participants were randomly assigned to either focus on the
  present or the future and then made specific decisions in hypothetical
  scenarios. In Study 1 (N=200), future-focused participants shared more
  money in a public dictator game than present-focused participants
  (+39\%), and they were willing to donate more money to charity
  (+61\%). Study 2 (N=410) replicated the positive effect of future-focus
  on dictator giving when the choice was framed as public (+36\%), but
  found no such effect when the choice was framed as private. That is,
  focusing on the future made participants more generous only when others
  would know their identity. Study 3 was a high-powered and pre-registered
  replication of Study 1 (N=472), including a few extensions. Once again,
  future-focused participants gave more money to charity in a public
  donation scenario (+40\%), and they were more likely to volunteer for the
  same charity (+17\%). As predicted, the effect was mediated by
  reputational concern, indicating that future-orientation can make people
  more generous because it also makes them more attuned to the social
  consequences of their choices.  Taken together, the results suggest that
  focusing on the future promotes \textit{reputation-based generosity}. By
  stimulating voluntary resource sharing, a central function of human
  foresight might be to support cooperation in groups and society.

% removed italics, some minor editing

\smallskip
\noindent
Keywords: future thinking, generosity, reputation, cooperation, morality
%\begin{latexonly}
\end{onecolabstract}\bigskip
]
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{\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{}

\footnotetext{

This work was partially supported by the Research Council of Norway
through its Centres of Excellence Scheme, FAIR project No 262675.

I thank Roy Baumeister, Andrew Vonasch, Helge Thorbjørnsen, Siv Skard,
Bertil Tungodden, Mathias Ekström, Ingrid Hoem Sjursen, Stefan
Meissner, George Loewenstein, Valerio Capraro and David Rand for
helpful comments on this work. In particular, I want to thank Tania
Reynolds for providing elaborate feedback on the central ideas, and for
proofreading the entire manuscript before submission.

Data and materials for all three studies are openly available:
\url{https://osf.io/y6mct/}. The hypotheses and
statistical analysis of Study 3 were pre-registered:
\url{https://aspredicted.org/q93ap.pdf}.

Copyright: \copyright\ 2019.
The authors license this article under the terms of the
\href{http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/}{Creative Commons
  Attribution 3.0 License.}
}}

\saythanks

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\section{Introduction}

The willingness to share is a critical ingredient in long-term
cooperation and social life. It is therefore of great importance both
for the individual and society to understand the psychology of human
generosity. In the current investigation, I propose that the decision
maker’s time perspective plays a vital role in social decision-making,
such that future-oriented thinking can promote higher levels of
generosity.

Taking one step back, cooperation is a fundamental building block in
optimal functioning --- ranging from basic cell biology to modern
society (Henrich \& Henrich, 2007; Nowak \& Highfield, 2011; Rand \&
Nowak, 2013). Indeed, cooperation might even be the ultimate foundation
for morality (Krebs, 2008; Tomasello \& Vaish, 2013; Curry, Mullins \&
Whitehouse, 2019). However, one central obstacle for successful
cooperation is that it requires a certain willingness to forgo one’s
own resources. When people refuse to share or defect from the interests
of the group, cooperation breaks down – often leaving most or all worse
off. After initial acts of generosity, however, long-term cooperation
may follow in self-reinforcing cycles. This makes the drivers of
initial generosity a major concern in psychology and the social
sciences.

In purely strategic terms, the problem with generosity is that the
personal cost is immediate whereas the greater reward is often delayed
or uncertain (Rand \& Nowak, 2013). So why then, is human resource
sharing so widespread? One reason might be that generosity tend to
offer long-term rewards (Eriksson, Vartanova, Strimling \& Simpson,
2018), and therefore, that thinking ahead might help people realize
this possibility before acting. In the present investigation, I test
the following proposition across three experiments (N=1,082): Sometimes
people are generous \textit{because} they think about the future. 

\subsection{The Power of Reputation}

If future-oriented thinking promotes generosity, why might that be? An
evolutionary and game-theoretic perspective suggests that the power of
reputation might be an important part of the explanation, as it creates
long-term incentives for voluntary resource sharing. Humans evolved to
cooperate to a greater extent than other primates (Henrich \& Henrich,
2007; Suddendorf, 2013; Tomasello, 2016), and typically secure survival
and reproduction through social means (Baumeister, 2005; Sloman \&
Fernbach, 2017). Central to such a social strategy is to attract future
cooperation partners by establishing a positive reputation, which can
be achieved through generous actions in the present (Tomasello, 2016).
By refusing to share, one's long-term prospects in the group and wider
community has a good chance to be severely harmed (Apicella, Marlowe,
Fowler \& Christakis, 2012). In this way, reputational mechanisms
create future rewards of pro-social behavior that typically exceeds the
immediate cost (Trivers, 1971; Axelrod, 1984: Rand \& Nowak, 2013). 

By zooming in on the actual decision process, the testable
hypothesis I propose here, is that merely \textit{thinking }about the
future consequences of one's choices promotes generosity.

\subsection{Reputation as Delayed Reward}

One reason to expect a connection between future-orientation and
reputational concern is that the notion of ``reputation'' is inherently
about the future. In essence, reputation is a delayed consequence of
one's choices in the present --- feeding forward in time to shape
future interactions. Human consciousness can produce mental simulations
of possible futures, which enables current decisions to be based on
anticipated outcomes (Baumeister, Maranges \& Sjåstad, 2018). To the
extent that this future consists of reputational concerns, engaging in
prospective thinking should increase the salience of the social rewards
for acting generously, thereby promoting voluntary resource sharing.

Crucially, people have a strong desire to build and maintain a positive
reputation to begin with. For instance, a recent study found a striking
willingness to incur personal costs and emotional discomfort to prevent
damaging reputational information from spreading to one's social network
(Vonasch, Reynolds, Winegard \& Baumeister, 2018). As part of the
experiments, student participants were provided with false test feedback
suggesting that they had clearly racist attitudes. When they were offered
the possibility to place their hand in a bowl of disgusting worms or endure
physical pain to prevent the dissemination of this information, 30\% and
63\% of the participants choose to do so, respectively. Moreover, the
historical record is full of parallel examples of how people go to great
lengths to protect their honor, ``save face'', participate in gun duels, or
in other ways pay a high price to secure their future reputation.

Closer to the domain of generosity, there is a large literature showing a
positive effect of mere observability on pro-social behavior (Bradley,
Lawrence \& Ferguson, 2018). In behavioral and experimental economics,
so-called ``end-game effects'' are prevalent, in which the rate of selfish
defection increases steeply in the last round of repeated interactions
(Andreoni, 1988). This means that people tend to act more generously when
their choices have possible long-term consequences, and less generously in
the (rare) situations where no social consequences are possible (for a
formal reputation model, see Camerer \& Weigelt, 1988). Similarly, studies
from social psychology have found that enabling the possibility of
``gossip'' leads to greater contributions to the group (Beersma \& Van
Kleef, 2011) and increased levels of generosity (Wu, Balliet \& Van Lange,
2016), driven by greater reputational concern. Thus, there is a broad range
of empirical evidence suggesting that the desire to maintain a positive
reputation can promote generosity. However, no studies have investigated
whether future-orientation can causally promote reputation-based
generosity.

\subsection{Future-Oriented Generosity: Suggestive Evidence}

Causal evidence for a direct link between future-oriented thinking and
generosity is lacking, but there are suggestive findings consistent
with this idea. For instance, humans think much more about the future
and share more resources with non-kin than any other species on the
planet. Although most if not all other animals seem to live
present-focused lives (Roberts, 2002; Suddendorf \& Corballis, 2007),
experience-sampling research has documented that people frequently
engage in “mental time travel” to the past and future (Baumeister,
Vohs \& Oettingen, 2016). Specifically, a large proportion of human
mental processes seems to be prospective and pragmatic, targeting what
the person needs to do in the present to produce positive future
outcomes (Schacter, Addis \& Buckner, 2007; Chennu et al., 2013;
Baumeister, Maranges \& Sjåstad, 2018). Studies on fairness concerns
and altruism show that people frequently share more than zero in
economic games, even when there is no strategic benefit of doing so
(Kahneman, Knetch \& Thaler, 1986; Fehr \& Schmidt, 2006; Cappelen \&
Tungodden, 2019). Hence, a possible basis for the psychological
connection between future-orientation and generosity is that the human
species is an extreme outlier on both. 

More relevant to the present investigation, correlational research on
individual differences has found that people with future-oriented
traits (``CFC'': Joireman, Shaffer, Balliet, \& Strathman, 2012) tend to
share more resources in social dilemmas than those who are not as focused
on future consequences (Kortenkamp \& Moore, 2006). Using an experimental
design, a recent study found that making a dictator decision in advance of
the actual implementation led to greater generosity than when decisions
were made with immediate consequences (Kölle \& Wenner, 2018). It is
therefore plausible, but not necessarily so, that future-oriented thinking
promotes generosity.

Some evidence from the field of comparative cognition suggests that even
children behave more pro-socially when reputational concerns are made
salient (Tomasello, 2016). Engelmann, Herrmann and Tomasello (2012)
found that 5-year-old children stole fewer resources and shared more
with others when someone was watching than when the children were
alone, whereas chimpanzees did not change their behavior in the
presence of other chimpanzees. This finding suggests that children
become more generous in social situations because they realize that
future rewards (or punishments) is possible. Indeed, 5-year-old
children shared more resources when an observer child could later
reciprocate (vs.\ not), and when the observer child was an ingroup
member (Engelmann, Over, Herrmann \& Tomasello, 2013). Thus, the
evidence suggests that pre-school children behave in accordance to
reputational rewards, highlighting the proposed connection between
future-mindedness and pro-sociality. 

However, the role of conscious and deliberate consideration of the
future is not addressed in any of the studies reviewed above.
It is not clear whether the 5-year-old children actually thought about
the future benefits of their social behavior, or if they acted on
subconscious intuitions. Research from developmental psychology
typically finds that children’s future perspective is rather limited
relative to that of adolescents and adults (e.g., Metcalfe \& Mischel,
1999), likely due to delayed development of the brain’s frontal-lobe.
Moreover, adults who are future-oriented and pro-social by disposition
(Kortenkamp \& Moore, 2006) surely have the sufficient
\textit{capacity} to think ahead, but the cognitive process of this
future-orientation could just as well consist of intuitive habits.
Thus, although the connection between future thinking and generosity is
plausible and consistent with suggestive findings, empirical evidence
for a causal link is lacking.

\subsection{Future-Oriented Competence --- With or Without Comprehension?}

To be sure, even if a behavioral pattern has been favored by natural
selection for its advantageous long-term consequences, conscious
awareness of these future consequences may or may not be part of the
actual decision process. Indeed, what Dennett (2013; 2017) refers to as
“competence without comprehension” is widespread in nature – that is,
knowing what to do and how to do it, without understanding why or
having an intentional purpose. For example, spiders spin their webs
instinctually, with the beneficial long-term consequence of catching
flies. Squirrels bury nuts for the winter, avoiding starvation in times
of nutritional scarcity. Termites build advanced tunnel systems that
protect against predators and hostile environments. However, neither
spiders, squirrels, nor termites show any observable sign of planning
or intentional foresight beyond fixed behavioral patterns, or at most,
short-termed expectations into the near future. 

Such examples of “competence without comprehension” (Dennett, 2013; 2017)
suggest that human behavior that is beneficial in the long-term does not
necessarily require conscious deliberation of these future outcomes (see
also: Bear \& Rand, 2016). When people make fast and intuitive decisions in
anonymous one-shot economic games, for example, they seem to blindly rely
on a reciprocity heuristic based on prior learning, even when there are no
long-term benefits of cooperating (Rand, 2016). Moreover, a large-scale
correlational study concluded that ``generosity pays'' in the long run, in
the sense that generous individuals tend to earn more money and have more
children than selfish individuals (Eriksson, Vartanova, Strimling, \&
Simpson, 2018). Thus, although generosity has clear long-term benefits and
future-oriented individuals tend to share more resources than short-sighted
individuals, it is not clear whether conscious deliberation about the
future is necessary or even advantageous for pro-sociality to occur. To
answer that question, experimental research on the role of
future-orientation is needed.

\subsection{The Present Investigation: Hypothesis and Experiment Design}

Across three experiments, I explored the causal effect of focusing on
the future (vs.\ the present) on participants’ willingness to share
resources in hypothetical decision scenarios. The general prediction
was that focusing on the future would promote generosity.

All studies used between-subjects experimental designs, to manipulate
whether participants focused on the immediate or long-term benefits of
their choices. Study 1 examined the effect of future-focus versus
present-focus on the willingness to share money in a dictator game
(Kahneman, Knetsch \& Thaler, 1986), and the willingness to share money
with a top-rated charity organization. Both choices were framed as public,
meaning that others would know the identity of the participant and how much
money (if any) he or she would give. Study 2 again examined the effect of
future-focus on resource sharing in the dictator game, but also manipulated
whether the choice setting was framed as public or private (i.e.,
anonymous). This second manipulation tested whether future-orientation
promotes generosity in general (including ``pure'' altruistic giving), or
whether the effect is restricted to reputation-based generosity where
choices are made in public.

Study 3 served as a high-powered and pre-registered replication of
Study 1. Crucially, Study 3 included a new process measure of
reputational concern to test the central hypothesis more directly ---
namely, that focusing on the future promotes \textit{reputation-based
generosity}. If intensified reputational concern is an important part
of the explanation, then future-focused participants should report a
corresponding thought pattern in relation to their choice --- which
should be positively correlated with the willingness to share. In
addition to the charity donation measure used in Study 1, Study 3 also
measured participants’ willingness to volunteer for the same charity.
This enabled a test of whether the effect of future-focus on
reputation-based generosity would generalize from donating money to
donating time. 

An alternative and competing hypothesis, predicted that future
thinking would promote generosity regardless of reputational
consequences. Indeed, construal level theory (Eyal, Liberman \& Trope,
2008) contends that greater temporal distance (from the present) can
lead to higher-level cognitive representations that promote moral
behavior. However, this was not a guiding prediction when the final
study was designed (see also: Gong \& Medin, 2012).

% why see also?

\subsection{Theoretical Model}

Most theories in psychology are stated verbally, in which the central
variables and testable predictions are only loosely defined ---
typically relying on metaphors or narrative illustrations of the
general idea. Such an approach can be an excellent starting point for
scientific inquiry (McGuire, 1997), but recent calls have argued for
greater adoption of formal models and better theory specification to
move the field forward. Ideally, this can generate novel insights into
the mechanisms of social decision-making (Crockett, 2016), and improve
the replicability and cumulative knowledge formation in psychological
research (Muthukrishna \& Henrich 2019). In the present investigation,
I aspire to adhere to this recommendation.

To illustrate the underlying model of the central hypothesis in its
simplest form, that focusing on the future will promote
reputation-based generosity, the value function of the decision-maker
can be stated formally as follows:
\begin{equation*}
V=\mathit{Give}[A + (LT \times R) - C],
\end{equation*}
where $V$ is the total subjective value derived from the choice, which the
decision-maker seeks to maximize. Give is the amount shared or donated,
$A$ is an indicator variable of altruism (individual differences in the
intrinsic pleasure of giving, regardless of long-term outcomes), and $C$
is an indicator variable of the monetary cost. $LT$ is an indicator
variable for long-term thinking, and $R$ is an indicator variable of
reputational concern.

When provided with a fixed endowment (\$100)\footnote{ The model can
be applied to allocation decisions regarding other resources as well,
such as time or effort.}, the amount given has a positive altruistic
value ($A$) and a negative monetary value in the present ($C$). When the
decision-maker do not consider long-term outcomes, the subjective value
of giving is determined by the parameters $A$ and $C$ ($A-C$). In this
case, the altruistic value of giving must exceed the monetary cost for
any amount above zero to be shared, and a higher net-level of altruism
leads to higher levels of giving. However, when the decision-maker
thinks about the future \textit{and }is concerned with the reputational
consequences of his or her choice, giving provides additional positive
value. In the current investigation, it is this specific part of the
model ($LT \times R$) that is varied by the experimental manipulation. 

Thus, the central prediction derived from this model is that
decision-makers who focus on the future (vs.\ the present) will on
average be willing to share more resources with others (H1), and that
this effect will be driven by a stronger concern for maintaining a
positive reputation (H2). 

\section{Study 1}

In an online experiment, Study 1 randomly assigned participants to
engage in either future-focused or present-focused thinking. After the
experimental manipulation, participants made two (unrelated) decisions
concerning how they would distribute \$100 between themselves and
someone else. First, participants reported how much money they would
share with an unknown recipient in a dictator game scenario. Second,
they reported how much money they would share with a top-rated charity,
Deworm the World Initiative.

Resembling the social nature of everyday life, both choices in Study 1
were described as public (i.e., others would know the participants’
identity and the outcome of their decision). The primary purpose of
Study 1 was to provide a preliminary test of the general hypothesis
(H1), namely that adopting a long-term perspective would increase
generosity, operationalized as the willingness to share economic
resources with others.

\subsection{Method}

\paragraph{Participants. }I recruited 200 American participants (94 female,
age \textit{M}=37.5) from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, for a brief online
study of “attitudes and decisions” in exchange for \$0.50. 

\paragraph{Materials and procedure. }Using a between-subjects design with
two conditions, participants were randomly assigned to a future-focused
or present-focused choice condition. Participants in the present
condition were instructed to think about the immediate benefits of
their choices, and to focus on what would be the best choices to make
in the situation they were in “right now”. Participants in the future
condition were instructed to think about the future benefits of their
choices, and to focus on what would be the best choices to make in the
long run. To amplify the strength and clarity of the manipulation,
participants were asked to demonstrate that they had read and
understood the text by reformulating the instruction in their own words
before they proceeded (“in about the same way as you would have
explained it to a friend or a colleague”).

A manipulation check assessed whether the experimental procedure was
successful in altering participants’ time perspective by asking, “What
will be your main focus when you respond to the following questions in
this survey?”, on a scale from 0 (the present) to 100 (the future).

Next, participants were presented with two hypothetical choice scenarios: A
dictator game scenario and a donation scenario. In both cases, participants
were asked to imagine that they were provided with \$100, that the
potential recipient was provided with \$0, and that it was entirely up to
them how much money (if any) they would give to the other person (dictator
scenario) and to the Deworm the World Initiative (donation
scenario). Dictator scenario: ``Imagine yourself in a real-life situation
in which you and another person are given one lottery ticket each, in which
the winner gets \$100 and the loser gets \$0. As it turns out, you win the
\$100, which you can keep to yourself or give to the other person, all or
any portion of it. Out of the \$100, how much (if any) would you give to
the other person?'' Charity scenario: ``Imagine yourself in a real-life
situation in which you are given \$100, which you can keep to yourself or
give to the top-rated charity 'Deworm the World Initiative', all or any
portion of it. Out of the \$100, how much (if any) would you give to the
Deworm the World Initiative?''  In both choice scenarios, participants
reported how much they would give and how much they would keep by typing in
the specific amounts, adding up to a total of \$100 for each choice.

The choice situation was described as public to all participants in both
conditions. Dictator scenario: “In addition to the outcome of your
decision, your full name and a picture of your face would be revealed
to the other person.” Donation scenario: “In addition to the outcome of
your decision, your full name and a picture of your face would be
published on a public website.” After making their choices in the two
scenarios and completing the survey, all participants were debriefed
and thanked for their participation.

\subsection{Results}

\paragraph{Manipulation check.} The manipulation of time perspective proved
successful, supporting the internal validity of the experiment. An
independent \textit{t}{}-test confirmed that participants in the future
condition intended to think much more about the future than participants in
the present condition (\textit{M}\textsubscript{future} = 98.22, \textit{SD
}= 5.71 vs.\ \textit{M}\textsubscript{present} = 11.22, \textit{SD }=
25.95, \textit{p }{\textless} .001).

\paragraph{Public generosity in dictator choice. }In line with the general
hypothesis of future-oriented generosity, an independent
\textit{t}{}-test revealed that participants in the future condition
were willing to give more money to the recipient in the dictator
scenario than participants in the present condition
(\textit{M}\textsubscript{future} = 28.82, \textit{SD }= 25.57
vs.\ \textit{M}\textsubscript{present} = 20.80, \textit{SD }=
23.75). The difference was statistically significant and the estimated
effect size was moderate (\textit{t}(198) = 2.30, \textit{p }= .023,
\textit{d }= .33). The relative increase in dictator giving following
future-focus (vs.\ present-focus) corresponds to +39\%. 

\paragraph{Public generosity in donation choice. }Also in line with the
general hypothesis, an independent \textit{t}{}-test revealed that
participants in the future condition were willing to donate more money
to the Deworm the World Initiative than participants in the present
condition (\textit{M}\textsubscript{future} = 28.35,
\textit{SD }= 27.02 vs.\ \textit{M}\textsubscript{present} =
17.56, \textit{SD }= 24.79). The difference was statistically
significant and the estimated effect size was moderate (\textit{t}(198)
= 2.94, \textit{p }= .004, \textit{d }= .42). The relative increase in
donation giving following future-focus (vs.\ present-focus) corresponds
to +61\%.

% Figure 1.
\begin{figure}[t]\centering
\includegraphics[clip=true,width=\columnwidth]{study1.eps}
\caption{Experiment 1 (N=200): The left panel illustrates the
mean amount given in a dictator game scenario for the present-focused
and future-focused condition (maximum amount: \$100). The right panel
illustrates the mean amount given in a charity donation scenario for
the present-focused and future-focused condition (maximum amount:
\$100). Error bars indicate standard error. Participants in the
future-focused (vs.\ present-focused) condition were willing to give
significantly more money to the recipient in the dictator game (+39\%,
\textit{d = }.33, \textit{p }= .023) and donate significantly more
money to charity (+61\%, \textit{d = }.42, \textit{p }= .004).}
\end{figure} 

\subsection{Discussion}

In line with the general hypothesis of future-oriented generosity, the
results from Study 1 showed that focusing on the future led to higher
levels of generosity in a public dictator game than focusing on the
present. In addition, future-focused participants were willing to give more
money to charity – suggesting that the effect is generalizable to a
different domain of pro-social choice.

However, the investigation thus far cannot attest to the psychological
mechanism – that is, \textit{why }thinking about the future led to an
increase in voluntary resource sharing. The central process hypothesis
(H2), predicts that the pro-social effect of future-orientation should be
driven by reputational concern. The alternative hypothesis predicts that
focusing on the future should increase resource sharing broadly, regardless
of reputational benefits. By using a 2x2 design where both time perspective
and choice framing are manipulated between conditions, Study 2 provides a
replication of the future-oriented generosity documented in Study 1, in
addition to providing a first test of the competing explanations. By
replicating the procedure from Study 1 and including reputational concern
as a novel mediator variable, Study 3 was designed to offer an additional
test of whether reputational concern can explain the positive effect of
future-orientation on generosity.

\section{Study 2}

As in Study 1, the participants in Study 2 were instructed to either
engage in future-focused or present-focused thinking when making their
decisions in the following scenarios. Using the same dictator game
scenario as in Study 1, the outcome measure was how much money out of
\$100 the participant would be willing to share with another person who
received \$0. Unlike Study 1, a second manipulation varied whether the
choice situation was described as public or private (i.e.,
anonymous). Study 2 therefore employed a factorial 2x2 design with four
conditions.

The central process hypothesis (H2), predicted future-focused generosity
only when the choice situation was described as public, but not when
the choice situation was described as private (i.e., not providing any
reputational basis for resource sharing). The alternative hypothesis
predicted that participants in the future condition would share more
money in the dictator game scenario than participants in the present
condition, regardless of choice context (private or public). 

\subsection{Method}

\paragraph{Participants. }I recruited 410 American participants (208
female, age \textit{M}=38,5) from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, for a brief
online study of “attitudes and decisions” in exchange for \$0.50. 

\paragraph{Materials and procedure. }In a between-subjects 2x2 factorial
design, participants were randomly assigned to a future-focused or
present-focused condition to make a hypothetical dictator choice. The
second manipulation varied whether the dictator choice was framed as
either private or public. Thus, the experiment had four conditions and
two manipulated independent variables; time perspective (future vs.
present) and choice context (public vs.\ private).

As in Study 1, participants in the present condition were instructed to
think about the immediate benefits of their choices, while participants
in the future condition focused on which choices were better in the
long run. Participants reformulated the instruction in their own words
before proceeding. A manipulation check assessed whether the
experimental procedure was successful in altering the time perspective
of participants, and asked: “What do you think about right now?”, on a
scale from 0 (the present) to 100 (the future). 

Unlike Study 1, the second experimental manipulation was whether this
dictator scenario was described as public (“In addition to the outcome
of your decision, your full name and a picture of your face would be
revealed to the other person”) or private (“Your identity would remain
entirely anonymous, regardless of your choice”).

Next, participants made a hypothetical decision in a dictator game
scenario, which was the only dependent variable in this study. As in
Study 1, participants were asked to imagine they received \$100 after
winning a lottery, that the other person received \$0, and that it was
entirely up to them how much money (if any) they would give to the
other person. After making their choice and completing the survey, all
participants were debriefed and thanked for their participation.

\subsection{Results}

\paragraph{Manipulation check.} An independent \textit{t}{}-test confirmed
that participants in the future condition indeed thought much more
about the future than participants in the present condition
(\textit{M}\textsubscript{future} = 67.77, \textit{SD }= 25.92
vs.\ \textit{M}\textsubscript{present} = 35.75, \textit{SD }=
32.33, \textit{p }{\textless} .001), indicating that the experimental
manipulation was effective. 

\paragraph{Generosity in dictator choice: Interaction analysis. }A two-way
ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of time-orientation (future
vs.\ present) and choice framing (public vs.\ private) on generosity in a
dictator game scenario. The analysis revealed a statistically
significant interaction between time-orientation and choice setting on
how much money participants were willing to share with the recipient
(F(2, 406) = 4.445, \textit{p }= .036). To unpack this interaction, I
conducted follow-up analyses of simple main effects.

\paragraph{Main effect: Public generosity in dictator choice.} When the
choice was framed as public, participants in the future condition were
willing to give significantly more money (+36\%) to the recipient than
participants in the present condition
(\textit{M}\textsubscript{future} = 27.67, \textit{SD }= 25.23
vs.\ \textit{M}\textsubscript{present} = 20.34, \textit{SD }=
22.91). The difference was statistically significant and the estimated
effect size was moderate (\textit{F}(1, 203) = 4.74, \textit{p }= .031,
partial \textit{$\eta $}\textsuperscript{2} = .023, \textit{d }= .31).

\paragraph{Main effect: Private generosity in dictator choice.} When the
choice was framed as private, however, there were no significant
difference between the two groups
(\textit{M}\textsubscript{future} = 21.00, \textit{SD }= 20.71
vs.\ \textit{M}\textsubscript{present} = 23.65, \textit{SD }=
26.66, \textit{F}(1, 203) = 0.64, \textit{p }= .426, partial
\textit{$\eta $}\textsuperscript{2} = .003, \textit{d }= .11). If
anything, participants in the future condition showed a non-significant
tendency to share slightly \textit{less} money than participants in the
present condition (-13\%).

%Figure 2
\begin{figure}[t]\centering
\includegraphics[clip=true,width=\columnwidth]{fig2.eps}
\caption{Experiment 2 (N=410): The figure illustrates the interaction
  between future-focus (vs.\ present-focus) and public (vs.\ private)
  choice framing in a dictator game scenario (maximum amount given:
  \$100). Error bars indicate standard error. Focusing on the future led
  participants to share more money when the choice was framed as public
  (right panel: d = .31, p = .031), but not when it was framed as
  private/anonymous (left panel: d = $-$.11, p = .426).}
\end{figure} 

\subsection{Discussion}

The results of Study 2 were in line with the central hypothesis of
reputation-based generosity, which predicted that future-focus would
increase public generosity without influencing private generosity. Thus,
the alternative hypothesis predicting a positive effect of
future-orientation on “pure” generosity was not supported. These findings
fit the view that adopting a long-term perspective increase people’s
pro-social inclinations due to reputational concerns, in which public
resource sharing is likely to provide a greater reward over time (either
directly or indirectly) than would refusing to share with others. In other
words, focusing on the future seems to promote reputation-based generosity
rather than ``pure'' altruistic generosity. However, because Study 2 did
not directly measure participants’ reputational concerns, these conclusions
cannot be drawn with certainty.

Study 3 therefore extended the investigation by examining whether the
greater generosity of future-oriented participants can indeed be
attributed to a greater concern for reputational consequences.

\section{Study 3}

Study 3 was a high-powered and pre-registered replication of Study 1
(PDF openly available: \url{https://aspredicted.org/q93ap.pdf}), in
which the hypotheses and statistical analysis were specified in advance
of the data collection. Beyond the inherent value of a large-scale
replication (Sakaluk, 2016), Study 3 included two extensions. First and
foremost, the main purpose of Study 3 was to examine reputational
concern as a psychological mechanism in a mediator model. The previous
two studies demonstrated that future-focused participants were more
generous than present-focused participants, but Study 2 found that this
was the case only in public scenarios, in which the choice was framed as
observable. Although these findings suggest a reputational mechanism,
the studies have so far not obtained any measure of the relevant
thought process. In Study 3, all participants reported the degree to
which they made their choices based on a social consideration of
wanting to secure a good reputation.

In addition to the charity donation measure used in Study 1, the
next extension was that Study 3 assessed participants’ willingness to
volunteer for the same charity as a second dependent variable. This
enabled an assessment of whether the effect from the previous studies
would generalize from donating money to donating time. Last, to
establish generalizability across specific charities, both outcome
measures in Study 3 used the Against Malaria Foundation as the
recipient, rather than Deworm the World Initiative as in Study 1.

Once again, the general hypothesis (H1) predicted that
future-focused participants would donate both more money and more time
to a charity than present-focused participants. Crucially, the process
hypothesis (H2) predicted that these effects would be statistically
mediated by reputational concern. In essence, then, the theoretical
prediction is that focusing on the future activates reputational
motivation, which then promotes generosity.

\subsection{Method}

\paragraph{Participants. }I recruited 500 American participants (244
female, age \textit{M}=36,5) from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, for a brief
online study of “cognition and decision-making” in exchange for \$0.50.

\paragraph{Materials and procedure. }As in Study 1, participants were
randomly assigned to a future-focus or present-focus condition
(between-subjects with two conditions). All participants read and rewrote
the task instruction in their own words, before responding to a
manipulation check that assessed their intended time perspective: ``What will
be your main focus in the remaining questions in this survey?''
(0=\textit{the present}, 10=\textit{the future}).

% figure 2, was figure 3
\begin{figure*}[t]\centering
\includegraphics[clip=true,width=5in]{study2.eps}
\caption{Experiment 3 (N=472): The left panel illustrates the
mean amount given in a charity donation scenario for the
present-focused and future-focused condition (maximum amount: \$100).
The right panel illustrates the proportion of participants in the
present-focused and future-focused condition who were willing to
volunteer for the same charity for an entire day (no/yes). Error bars
indicate standard error. Participants in the future-focused (vs.
present-focused) condition were willing to donate significantly more
money to charity (+40\%, \textit{d = }.32, \textit{p }= .001) and were
significantly more likely to volunteer for the same charity (+17\%,
\textit{d }= .35, \textit{p }{\textless} .001).}
\end{figure*} 

In the first outcome measure, taken from Study 1, participants imagined
that they were provided with \$100, and that it was entirely up to them how
much money (if any) they would donate to the Against Malaria Foundation
(\$0--\$100). In the second and novel outcome measure, participants were
asked whether they would be willing to spend an entire day volunteering on
a nearby call center for the same charity, in which they made a dichotomous
choice (yes/no). This scenario was described as follows: ``Imagine yourself
in a real-life situation in which you are asked to donate some of your time
to the top-rated charity 'Against Malaria Foundation'. If so, you would
volunteer for an entire working day on a call center, nearby where you
live. If this was a real and committing choice: Would you be willing to
donate one working day to the Against Malaria Foundation?'' As the second
outcome measure, all participants responded yes or no to this question.

As in Study 1, both choices in Study 3 were described as public for all
participants. For charity giving: “In addition to the outcome of your
decision, your full name and a picture of your face would be published
on a public website”. For charity volunteering: ``In
addition to the outcome of your decision, your full name and a picture
of your face would be published in the local newspaper.''
This choice framing was included to provide a reputational basis for
voluntary resource sharing.

To assess reputational concern more directly, a four-item measure of
reputational concern was presented following each of the generosity
decisions (adapted from: Beersma \& Van Kleef, 2011; Wu, Balliet \& Van
Lange, 2016). On a response scale from 1 (\textit{totally disagree}) to 7
(\textit{totally agree}), participants rated their agreement with the
following statements: ``When making my choice, I thought about how others
would think about me in the future''; ``The fact that people would know
about my decision played an important role in the choice I made''; ``When I
made my choice, I wanted to make sure that others would evaluate me
positively''; ``I did NOT consider what people would say about me during
the task'' (reversed). This measure was reliable (Cronbach's ${\alpha}$:
0.91), which enabled a statistical test of the reputational process
hypothesis. After making their choices in the two scenarios and reporting
their degree of reputational concern directly following each choice, all
participants were debriefed and thanked for their participation.

\subsection{Results}

% figure 3, was figure 4
\begin{figure*}[t]\centering
\includegraphics[clip=true,width=6.5in]{fig4.eps}
\caption{Experiment 3 (N=472): Participants in the
future-focus condition expressed significantly higher reputational
concern than participants in the present-focus condition. This elevated
concern for securing a good reputation mediated the positive effect of
future-focus on generosity (left diagram: charity giving; right
diagram: charity volunteering).}
\end{figure*} 

\paragraph{Manipulation check.} The manipulation check indicated that the
task instruction was effective for 94.5\% of the sample (\textit{N} = 472
out of \textit{N }= 500), meaning that participants in the future condition
complied to the instruction and intended to focus on the future by
reporting the number 6 or higher on a 0--10 scale, and that participants in
the present condition intended to focus on the present by reporting the
number 4 or lower on the same scale. In line with the pre-registered
analysis plan, the non-complying participants (\textit{N} = 28) were
excluded. Thus, a final sample of 472 participants were included in the
data analysis (intended time perspective: \textit{M}\textsubscript{future}
= 9.53, \textit{SD }= 1.10 vs.\ \textit{M}\textsubscript{present} = .09,
\textit{SD }= .61, p {\textless} .001).

\paragraph{Power calculation.} To ensure sufficient statistical power, the
sample size of Study 3 per cell is more than 2.5 times that of
Study 1 --- which is a recommended benchmark for high-powered
replication studies (Simonsohn, 2015). A sensitivity analysis in
G*power (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang \& Buchner, 2007) showed that in a
between-subjects design with two conditions, a sample of 472
participants provides 90\% power to detect an effect size of \textit{d
}= .30 at the 5\% significance level with a two-tailed test. This
effect corresponds to 71.5\% of the observed effect size in Study 1
(\textit{d} = .42), which suggests that the current experiment had
sufficient power to reject a smaller effect than the one originally
observed. 

\paragraph{Public generosity in charity giving.} In line with the general
hypothesis of future-oriented generosity, an independent
\textit{t}{}-test revealed that participants in the future condition
were willing to donate more money to the Against Malaria Foundation
than participants in the present condition
(\textit{M}\textsubscript{future} = 33.01, \textit{SD }= 28.95
vs.\ \textit{M}\textsubscript{present} = 23.60, \textit{SD }=
29.31). The difference was statistically significant and the estimated
effect size was moderate (\textit{t}(470) = 3.50, \textit{p }= .001,
\textit{d }= .32). The relative increase in donation giving following
future-focus (vs.\ present-focus) corresponds to +40\%.

\paragraph{Public generosity in charity volunteering.} Also supporting the
general hypothesis, a chi-square test revealed that participants in the
future condition were more likely to volunteer for charity than
participants in the present condition. Whereas 66.3\% of participants
in the future condition were willing to volunteer on a nearby call
center for the Against Malaria Foundation, only 49.1\% made the same
choice in the present condition. The difference in proportions was
statistically significant and the estimated effect size was moderate
($\chi $2(1, N = 472) = 14.26, \textit{p} {\textless} .001, \textit{r} =
.17, \textit{d} = .35). This effect corresponds to a 17\% increase in
the likelihood of volunteering when focusing on the future as compared
to the present.

For the effect on both outcome measures reported above, a non-registered
robustness check found that the association between future-focus and
generosity remained statistically significant and practically unchanged
when controlling for age and gender (Charity giving: \textit{p }= .001;
Charity volunteering: \textit{p }{\textless} .001).

\paragraph{Mediation analysis: Reputational concern.} To test the
pre-registered hypothesis regarding the reputational mechanism, I
conducted a statistical mediation analysis in PROCESS (Hayes, 2017:
Model 4). Future-focus (vs.\ present-focus) was included as the
independent variable, reputational concern as the mediator variable,
and generosity as the dependent variable. This was done separately for
the two outcome measures, charity giving and willingness to volunteer.

The results showed that the positive effect of future-focus on generosity
was indeed mediated by reputational concern (Charity giving: \textit{ab }=
8.45; Charity volunteering: \textit{ab }= .60), as a bias-corrected
confidence interval based on 10,000 bootstrap samples did not include the
value 0 for neither of the two outcome measures (Charity giving: CI = 5.92;
11.31; Charity volunteering: CI = .40, .84). For charity giving, focusing
on the future led to higher levels of reputational concern
(\textit{M}\textsubscript{future} = 3.73, \textit{SD = }1.93 vs.
\textit{M}\textsubscript{present}\textit{\textsubscript{ }}= 2.44,
\textit{SD }= 1.75;\textit{ d }= .70, \textit{a }= 1.29, \textit{p
}{\textless} .001), and higher reputational concern was associated with
higher levels of generosity in the choice-based outcome measure (\textit{b
}= 6.54, \textit{p }{\textless}. 001). For charity volunteering, a similar
pattern was found: Focusing on the future led to higher reputational
concern (\textit{M}\textsubscript{future} = 3.67, \textit{SD = }1.96 vs.\
\textit{M}\textsubscript{present}\textit{\textsubscript{ }}= 2.49,
\textit{SD }= 1.80; \textit{d }= .63, \textit{a }= 1.18, \textit{p
}{\textless} .001), and higher reputational concern was associated with
higher willingness to volunteer (\textit{b }= .51, \textit{p }{\textless}
.001).

When reputational concern was included as a mediator variable in the
model, the direct effect of future-focus was no longer statistically
significant (by far) for either of the two outcome measures (Charity
giving: \textit{c' }= .96, \textit{p }= .711; Charity volunteering:
\textit{c' }= .22, \textit{p }= .308). This suggests that a large
proportion of the positive effect of future-orientation on generosity
can be explained by a corresponding increase in the social concern for
one's reputation.

\subsection{Discussion}

As in the previous studies, Study 3 found that participants who focused on
the future were more generous than participants who focused
on the present. This was true across two different outcome measures of
public generosity: willingness to donate money to charity and willingness
to donate one's time to the same charity (volunteering at a call center for
an entire workday).

In addition to providing a high-powered replication of Study 1,
Study 3 identified a psychological mechanism that motivated pro-social
decision-making. Specifically, a process analysis showed that the
positive effect of future-orientation on generosity was statistically
mediated by elevated levels of reputational concern. Consistent with
the theoretical model and the central hypothesis, this finding suggests
that focusing on the future specifically promotes reputation-based
generosity.

\section{General Discussion}

Across three experiments and a total of 1,082 participants, thinking about
the future, as distinct from thinking about the present, was strongly
connected to higher levels of generosity.  After being randomly assigned to
focus on the future rather than the present, people became significantly
more willing to share resources with others. This pattern was found across
different choice measures across the three studies, and was successfully
replicated in a high-powered and pre-registered experiment (Study 3).

Specifically, future-focused generosity was found in a dictator game
scenario (Study 1 and Study 2), and charity donation scenarios
involving both money (Study 1 and 3) and time (Study 3). Participants
who focused on the future were willing to share more money across
different recipient categories than participants who focused on the
present, and they were also more willing to volunteer for the same
charity for an entire work day. Further supporting the generalizability
of the effect, future-orientation predicted larger donations to two
different charities, Deworm the World Initiative (Study 1) and
Against Malaria Foundation (Study 3). 

Turning to the psychological mechanism, a reputational explanation
was supported by two different findings. In Study 2, there was a
significant interaction between future-orientation and choice framing,
in which future-orientation did not increase resource sharing when the
choice was framed as private (i.e., anonymous). That is,
future-orientation promoted generosity only when the choice was framed
as public and observable to others, which offers reputational benefits
of pro-social giving. This finding suggests that future-orientation can
make people more generous because it also makes them more attuned to
the social consequences of their choices. To provide a more direct test
of this explanation, Study 3 assessed participants’ reputation concerns
following their decisions. Indeed, participants who thought about the
future experienced elevated reputational concerns than did those
thinking about the present, and these reputational concerns prompted
greater generosity with their time and money. Seen as a whole, then,
the three studies offer converging evidence for the central hypothesis
in this investigation: Focusing on the future promotes
\textit{reputation-based generosity}.

\subsection{Implications for Generosity and Cooperation}

Given that cooperation is often a positive-sum game, in which the
long-term rewards from mutual resource sharing is greater than the
immediate costs (Nowak \& Highfield, 2011; Rand \& Nowak, 2013), one
implication of the current findings is that selfishness can be
understood as a form of “short-sightedness” or present bias in social
decision-making. Correlational research using personality measures
shows that future-oriented individuals tend to share more resources in
social dilemmas than individuals who are less concerned with future
consequences (Kortenkamp \& Moore, 2006). The present investigation
supported the causal direction of this pattern, demonstrating that
those who were randomly assigned to a present-focused condition were
less generous than participants in the future-focused condition. One
interpretation of these findings is that thinking about the future can
promote generosity by shifting one’s attention from immediate costs to
the \textit{anticipated rewards }of pro-social behavior.

Ideally, adopting a future-oriented mindset might help individuals,
groups, and perhaps even societies to become more successful by
generating positive spirals of long-term cooperation. This suggests
that psychologists and behavioral economists interested in the nature
of generosity should not limit their analysis to social preferences or
pro-social motivation. The present findings suggest they should also
study the possible role of future-orientation, time preferences and
self-control when attempting to explain and predict social behavior
(Pinker, 2011).

It should be noted that the idealistic act of pure altruism in anonymous
choice reached almost one-fifth or 20\% of the total amount given in Study
2, which is much higher than what a perfectly selfish agent would do (i.e.,
give 0\% and keep 100\%). In line with anecdotal observations from everyday
life as well as empirical research from psychology and behavioral economics
(Kahneman, Knetch \& Thaler, 1986; Fehr \& Schmidt, 2006; Cappelen \&
Tungodden, 2019), this finding suggests that people derive some intrinsic
pleasure or subjective value from sharing resources with others even when
no strategic benefits are possible. However, this ``intrinsic pleasure of
giving'' in anonymous choice was not influenced by focusing on the future.

Although resource sharing is a critical ingredient in cooperation, the
present findings cannot speak directly to the empirical link between the
two. A study by Peysakhovich, Nowak and Rand (2014) found evidence for a
so-called ``cooperative phenotype'', in the sense that people's behavior
across different economic games was highly correlated. Specifically, the
inclination to help others seems to generalize across the dictator game,
the trust game and the public goods game, reflecting a domain-general
tendency that is relatively stable over time. Another study found that
people who act generously in the dictator game also tend to cooperate in
the public goods game, but not the converse (Capraro, Jordan \& Rand,
2014). It is therefore a plausible hypothesis, but nonetheless an open
question, whether the future-focused effect on generosity would generalize
from the current investigation to cooperative behavior in other games and
choice settings.

\subsection{Implications for Future-Oriented Thinking (“Prospection”)}

Although people are systematically present-biased as compared to
normative standards for rational decision-making, the human ability to
think long-term is extraordinary in nature (for reviews, see Roberts,
2002; Suddendorf, 2013). The findings in this investigation demonstrate
the potential value to such prospective cognition, while also
illustrating the malleability or context-sensitivity of human
time-orientation (Bulley, Henry \& Suddendorf, 2016; Bulley et al.,
2019). People are both able and willing to think about the future if
the situation offers salient cues for it, such as reputational
consequences or other reminders of long-term outcomes. The current
findings suggest that when people look beyond the present situation,
they may also become more willing to share resources with others.

As for the theoretical understanding of how and why people think
about the future in the first place, the present findings fit a
navigational theory of prospection (Seligman et al., 2013; Baumeister,
Maranges \& Sjåstad, 2018). Rather than focusing mostly on prediction
of external events, people typically think ahead in strategic ways to
navigate between different choice options, to figure out which specific
behaviors they should enact to produce the desired outcome. That is,
when people think ahead, they don't see the future as a straight path,
but rather, they simulate it as a ``matrix of maybe'' in which multiple
outcomes are possible (Baumeister, Maranges \& Sjåstad, 2018).
In support of this view, research using experience-sampling methods
has found that people think much more about the future than the past,
and that future-oriented thoughts consist primarily of planning and
other strategic concerns (Baumeister, Vohs \& Oettingen, 2016).
Moreover, people perceive the future as more open, changeable and
controllable than the past (Rothbart \& Snyder, 1970; Helzer \&
Gilovich, 2012; Ferrante, Girotto, Stragà \& Walsh, 2013).

The current investigation offers support to the idea of
prospection-as-navigation. Focusing on the future increased
reputation-based generosity, in which people shared resources in social
situations that offered a strategic basis for doing so. Thus, one way
to get what one wants and reach one’s goals is to build a positive
reputation by treating others with generosity and care. Thinking about
the future before deciding seems to intensify this concern and
facilitate pro-social decision-making. 

\subsection{Implications for Economic Behavior}

The study findings suggest that part of the key to promote resource
sharing might lie in developing interventions that effectively alter
people’s time-orientation toward the long-term future, especially when
moral encouragement proves ineffective or when short-sighted greed
undermines positive-sum cooperation. 

Indeed, a recent large-scale study of 80,000 participants across 76
countries found that a substantial portion of country-level differences
in wealth could be accounted for by individual differences in
future-orientation (Falk et al., 2018). Countries with the most patient
citizens also tend to be the best performing countries economically –
even when statistically controlling for other relevant factors such as culture,
institutions, and access to natural resources. But why is it that
future-orientation is associated with better economic performance? Falk
and colleagues (2018) found that future-orientation was associated with
higher savings rates, education levels, and investment in research and
development. The present studies suggest a psychological mechanism
underlying these patterns: A tendency to focus on the future might lead
to better economic performance because it intensifies the reputational
motivation to create and share resources with one another. 

\subsection{Limitations}

The present experiments used hypothetical scenarios to measure economic
decision-making, asking people to indicate how much money they would be
willing to share with others in an ostensible dictator game scenario
and in two different charity donation scenarios. In a third donation
scenario, participants made a hypothetical choice about whether they
would volunteer for charity (yes/no).  A recent study identified both
similarities and differences in behavior and brain activity when
comparing real versus hypothetical choices (Camerer \& Mobbs, 2016),
suggesting that hypothetical measures may provide an incomplete picture
of actual decision-making. 

On the other hand, a study by Ben-Ner, Kramer \& Levy (2008) found that
hypothetical and real (incentivized) choices in the dictator game were
highly correlated, leading the authors to conclude that the amount
given was “remarkably similar” whether the transaction concerned real
money or not. Similar findings have been reported in research on
intertemporal choice and temporal discounting (Johnson \& Bickel,
2002). These findings suggest that measures of hypothetical choice may be a
``good enough'' proxy for actual decisions in
this type of experimental designs. Moreover, hypothetical choice has
been a central source of data in judgment and decision research for
decades (e.g. Kahneman \& Tversky, 1979; Kahneman, Knetch \& Thaler,
1986), under the assumption that they can elicit the heuristics or
generalized strategies that people rely on in related choice
environments. According to recent studies, the principles and effects
derived from this type of decision research seems to replicate quite
well also in incentivized experiments in behavioral economics (Camerer
et al., 2018). Ideally, however, future research on the psychology of
generosity could build on the present findings by supplementing
measures of hypothetical choice with incentivized measures of real
choice.

Regarding the statistical robustness of the results, there appears to be
some meaningful differences between the three studies in the present
investigation. The observed effect sizes were larger and the p-value
were lower for charity giving (Studies 1 and 3) than dictator giving
(Studies 1 and 2) as the outcome measure, suggesting that
future-focused generosity might be a more robust phenomenon in the
charity domain. Second, the evidence for the reputational mechanism was
stronger in the mediation model in Study 3 than in the factorial design
in Study 2. Specifically, the mediation effect was highly significant
on both outcome measures of generosity in Study 3, whereas the
interaction effect between time perspective (future vs.\ present) and
choice framing (public vs.\ private) in Study 2 was closer to the 5\%
threshold for statistical significance. Given that statistical power is
a function of both sample size per condition and the expected effect
size, the most efficient way to build on the present findings in future
research might be to extend the process approach from Study 3, relying
on two experiment conditions and a self-reported measure of
reputational concern as the mediator variable. Alternatively, or in
addition, future studies might want to replicate the interaction effect
from Study 2 in a large-scale, high-powered experiment in which such an
effect can be detected or rejected with greater certainty (Simonsohn,
2015). 

In that regard, I note that recent work has identified a reputation
heuristic in social decision-making (Jordan \& Rand, 2019), in which people
punish others and express moral outrage as if they are observed even in
situations that guarantee anonymity. By the same token, it is therefore
possible that reputational motivation might produce an ``overgeneralized''
effect of future-focus on generosity in some anonymous choice situations,
although such an effect was not observed in the current investigation.

A final limitation is that my experimental manipulations compared present and
future, without any condition in which participants were not asked to take one
perspective or the other. Thus, we do not know what they would do without
instructions in a neutral baseline condition.

\subsection{Future Directions}

The present experiments suggest that focusing on the future, as opposed to
the present, can lead people to consider reputation-based generosity as a
rewarding long-term strategy. In future research, mapping out the possible
interplay between future-orientation and social-economic (boundary)
conditions could benefit from a closer examination.

For example, a study by Jachimowicz and colleagues (2017)
demonstrated that although poverty is generally associated with
short-sighted economic behavior, poor people in Bangladesh actually
made long-term decisions once they thought they could trust their local
communities. That is, increased community trust reduced future
discounting. A similar connection has been identified between trait
self-control and uncertainty, in which children became less willing to
delay gratification (i.e., waiting for a greater reward in the future)
when the experimenter did not appear to be trustworthy (Kidd, Palmeri,
\& Aslin, 2013). 

The same could be the case for the psychology of generosity. If one's
environment is unlikely to provide any reputational benefits from
pro-sociality, thinking ahead might not promote resource sharing at all
--- for good reason. Indeed, the positive effect of future-orientation
might be moderated by individuals’ social context, such as safety, the
general predictability of one’s life situation, and trust for nearby
social partners. If so, social security and individual
future-orientation might be an especially powerful combination in
promoting voluntary resource sharing and long-term cooperation. This
possibility remains to be addressed empirically in future research.

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