Social discount functions have been used as a quantitative description of altruistic choice. In support of kin altruism theories, previous research has found that participants discounted outcomes less to relatives than nonrelatives. However, weaknesses in those analyses, such as disproportionate value comparisons, limit the validity of those findings. The current study sought to amend those weaknesses by using individual social discount rates and explicit identification of the beneficiary to assess differences in altruistic choice. Like previous research, results demonstrated the same direction of altruism in favor of relatives, but a multilevel analysis demonstrated no significant difference between discounting towards relationship types. Moreover, explicit identification of beneficiaries did not alter altruism significantly. Implications for future research and determinants of altruistic choice are discussed.

社会折扣函数已被用作利他选择的定量描述。为支持亲属利他主义理论，先前的研究发现，参与者对亲属的影响比对非亲属的要少。然而，这些分析中的弱点，例如不成比例的价值比较，限制了这些发现的有效性。目前的研究试图通过使用个人社会贴现率和受益人的明确识别来评估利他选择的差异来修正这些弱点。与之前的研究一样，结果表明利他主义有利于亲属的方向相同，但多层次分析表明，对关系类型的折扣没有显着差异。此外，受益人的明确识别并没有显着改变利他主义。