Hunger Feeds More the Hungry: Evidence on Cognitive and Affective Empathy

We investigate experimentally the impact of cognitive and affective empathy on behavior. A novelty of the study is that we do so directly without invoking responses to questionnaires, but by manipulating the state of hunger of participants in the single-shot Dictator game during the holy month of Ramadan. Our sample consists of male workers in the Sepaahaan (car battery) manufacturing factory in the city of Isfahan in Iran. We find that, only, affective empathy amplifies altruistic behavior. More specifically, hungry dictators transfer more money to hungry recipients than fed dictators. The difference is statistically as well as economically significant.