Identification of Altruism among Team Members: Empirical Evidence from the Classroom and Laboratory

It is difficult to identify acts that are purely altruistic, and do not have some level of egoism or self-interest involved. By considering situations where team members seemingly have nothing to gain by the way they distribute points to others with regard to peer evaluation, and where their acts of giving are anonymous, can never be verified, and cannot guarantee reciprocity, we see that there is still significant evidence of altruism, which we then confirm using laboratory experiments.