MESSAGE
| DATE | 2023-08-25 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Good Newws for the Moth of Elul
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https://www.wsj.com/science/the-instinct-to-share-our-good-fortune-51720ad3?mod=science_lead_story
Science
Mind & Matter
The Instinct to Share Our Good Fortune
A new study shows that recipients of a cash windfall usually give much
of it away, even if they don’t get credit for their generosity.
By Alison Gopnik
Aug. 24, 2023 2:00 pm ET
Illustration: Tomasz Walenta
What would you do if suddenly, out of the blue, someone gave you
$10,000? Buy a new couch? Give your grandson a trip to New York? Make a
big donation to help Maui fire victims? It’s fun to daydream, but this
simple scenario may help to answer one of the deepest questions about
human nature. Are we fundamentally selfish or altruistic?
Elizabeth Dunn and colleagues at the University of British Columbia and
Chris Anderson, the head of TED (the foundation behind all those TED
talks), have a new paper in the journal Psychological Science. They
didn’t just ask people to speculate about a windfall, they actually made
it happen. A rich couple bankrolled gifts of $10,000 each to 200 people
around the world and distributed the money through TED.
The gift came with two provisos: You had to spend it all in three
months, and you had to use an anonymous questionnaire to keep track of
how you spent it. The experimenters told half the people that they
should also describe their spending on Twitter. They told the other half
that they should keep it to themselves.
For a long time economists assumed that people, at bottom, act in
their own self-interest.
For a long time economists assumed that people, at bottom, act in their
own self-interest. Even when they seem generous, they’re really only
concerned about what other people will think of them. But more recently,
psychologists and behavioral economists have found that some people may
be intrinsically altruistic. Even very young children will spontaneously
go out of their way to help others.
The most extensive evidence for natural altruism comes from “the
dictator game,” invented in 1986 by Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel
Prize-winning father of behavioral economics, as a simple way to test
generosity. A participant is given some money, maybe $10 or $20, and can
decide whether to give some of it anonymously to another person.
“Homo economicus” ought to just keep it all, and some people do just
that. But on average, across hundreds of studies with thousands of
participants in many different countries, people consistently give away
about 28% of the money. People in non-industrialized countries give a
bit more than people in market economies, women give more than men, and
older people give more than younger ones. But everybody is generous overall.
Still, there’s something artificial about these experiments. The
participants were mostly college students in a lab who knew they were in
a study, and the stakes were mostly quite small. What would people do in
real life with serious money? Would they keep it for themselves or give
it to others? And would it make a difference if their decisions were
public or private?
The new study was designed to ask those questions. And the answers were
encouraging.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
If you came into a windfall, how much would you give away, and how? Join
the conversation below.
The participants didn’t know anything about the point of the study, and
their responses were anonymous. But people in both rich and poor
countries gave about 60% of the money to others. Often the money went to
friends and family, but around 20% went to strangers, much like the
typical proportion in the dictator game. What’s more, it didn’t matter
whether the participants announced their decisions publicly, as we might
expect if generosity is mostly motivated by wanting approval.
This study is particularly dramatic, but it supports the general idea
that humans are as naturally generous as they are naturally selfish. The
big question this raises is harder than deciding between buying that
couch and helping Maui: How can we design a political and economic
system that encourages this generous spirit?
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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