Prosocial Behavior in Public and Private Spheres: Theory and Experiments

Technology widens the access to information about our conduct. This paper aims at shedding theoretical and empirical light on induced behavioural changes in our public and private spheres. Agents misallocate efforts between the two spheres by behaving more prosocially in the public sphere than in the private sphere. More importantly, a larger public sphere leads to lower prosociality in both public and private spheres. Overall, giving a socially-valued behaviour more visibility does not necessarily make it more prevalent. Two laboratory experiments confirm these findings.