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. Excerpts:
"Elizabeth Dunn and colleagues at the University of British Columbia and Chris Anderson, the head of TED . . . [gave] $10,000 each to 200 people around the world and distributed the money"
"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."
"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."
"But people in both rich and poor countries gave about 60% of the money to others [in the Elizabeth Dunn study]. 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"
Related posts:
The Invisible Hand Increases Trust, Cooperation, and Universal Moral Action (2022)
Is it a retailer’s job to keep shoppers from their vices? (or Adam Smith vs. CVS pharmacy) (2017)
Can You Find Virtue by Investing in Vice? (2006)
Conspicuous Consumption, Conspicuous Virtue, Thorstein Veblen (and Adam Smith, too!) (2007)
Is altruism a result of selfishness? (2017)
Do you have to be selfish to make more money? (2018)
Does collective self-deception mask selfish behavior? (2018)
Why Doing Good Makes It Easier to Be Bad (2019)
The Dalai Lama Says It Is Sometimes OK To Be Selfish (2013)
Why being kind to others is good for your health (and that can include donating money) (2020)
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