AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON CULTURAL CONSUMPTION AND EGOIST DECISION-MAKING

The paper aims is to show empirically in a new context that the mechanism that regulates the decision-making process when consuming cultural goods does not entirely fit to the egoism and rational choice theory proposed by classic economics. To achieve this objective we made an experimental design with three groups (two experimental groups and one control group), that were given the option of hypothetically choosing between claiming the return of entrance fee at the exit of various cultural events (egoist decision) or not to do it (decision no-egoist). A binomial test was made to determine whether the differences of proportions between the affirmative and negative answers was statistically significant. The results indicate that, in the majority of cases, the participants refused to ask the reimbursement of the ticket's money at the exit of the cultural event, acting as no-rational persons from the classic economics point of view. For practical purposes, these results would increase the number of people attending cultural events.