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Ineffective altruism is the practice of ineffective giving and refers to instances where efforts to do good or contribute to a cause do not produce the intended positive impact. [1] It is a concept that has its origins in social psychology, [2] moral psychology, [3] philosophy [4] and charitable giving. [5] In general, humans are motivated to do good things in the world, whether that is through donations to charity, volunteering time for a cause, or just lending a hand to someone who needs help. [6] [7] In 2022, approximately 4.2 billion people donated their money, time, or helped a stranger. [6] Donating money to charity is especially substantial. For instance, 2% of the GDP of the United States goes to charitable organizations—a total of more than $450 billion in annual donations. [8] Despite the human tendency and motivation to give and engage in altruistic behavior, research has shed light on an unequal motivation to give effectively. [1] [9]
The term "ineffective altruism" refers to altruistic behavior that leads to a sub-optimal outcome with a given amount of resources. [2] [10] For instance, an altruistic act can be effective if the use of a set of resources saves as many lives as possible. [1] [11] The term is unrelated to effective altruism as a movement, but originates from the ideal of effective altruism as a normative framework.
Humans are motivated to give, but not motivated to give effectively. [9] In the domain of business decisions, investors look for how much return they will get for each dollar they invest. However, when it comes to the domain of altruistic decision-making, this line of thinking is far less common. [5] In fact, most donors seem to prioritize giving to charitable organizations that spend the least possible amount on running costs in the hopes of having more of their donation reach the destination. [11] [12]
While plenty of studies in the behavioral sciences have demonstrated the cognitive and emotional limitations in charitable giving, some argue that the reasons behind ineffective giving run deeper. [13] [9] A study by academics at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggested that the human tendency to be altruistically ineffective can be explained through evolutionary motives and game theory. [9] They argue that society rewards the act of giving but provides no motivation or incentive to give effectively. Past research suggests that altruistic motives are distorted by, among other things, parochialism, status and conformity. [14] [15] [13]
People are sensitive to effectiveness when they or their kin are at stake, [14] but not so much when confronted with a needy stranger. [9] [16] [17] Donors have been shown to respond to impact and efficacy when giving to themselves, but less so when donating to charity. [9] [13] In fact, while cost-effectiveness information of charities tends to be hard to evaluate, [18] [4] studies have shown that people are less scope insensitive when the beneficiaries are family members. [9]
Throughout human evolutionary history, residing in small, tightly-knit groups has given rise to prosocial emotions and intentions towards kin and ingroup members, rather than universally extending to those outside the group boundaries. [19] [3] Humans tend to exhibit parochial tendencies, showing concern for their in-groups, but not out-groups. [13] [9] This parochial inclination can hinder effective altruism, especially as a significant portion of human suffering occurs in distant regions. [4] [20] Despite the potential impact of donations in different parts of the world, individuals in rich and developed countries often view assistance to physically distant others as less important than helping those in close proximity. [20] [13] [9] Contrary to maximizing impact and effectiveness with their donations, many individuals commit to donating money to local charities and organizations to which they have a personal connection, thus living by the notion of "charity begins at home." [2] [21] Similarly, people are more inclined to help a needy child from their neighborhood rather than their city or country. [22]
Humans assign value to their social status within a group for survival and reproduction. [17] People tend to pursue high-status positions to enjoy benefits, such as desirable mating partners. [23] Therefore, behaviors that can produce reputational benefits are desirable to enhance one's standing in society. [24] Altruistic acts are generally viewed positively, [25] yield social rewards, [14] [9] and are cumulative. [26] However, effective altruism, that is, altruistic behavior that focuses on maximizing others' welfare, is not socially rewarded. [9] [27] Even though altruistic acts are viewed favorably, observers value cost-minimization for the person committing the altruistic act more than the benefits of the receiver. [28] In fact, evidence-based reasoning in charitable giving is perceived negatively, amoral, and reduces a person's likability. [29] Some have even argued that the reputational costs incurred for engaging in effective giving explain people's aversion to prioritizing some causes over more impactful ones. [1]
Many living organisms have demonstrated conformity, [30] [31] that is, the tendency to use dominant group norms (or descriptive norms) as guiding rules of behavior. Research on humans has also shown that social norms have the power to influence what others do. [32] In the judgment and decision-making research, this observation has come to be known as the bandwagon effect. The power of this bias has also been demonstrated in the field of charitable giving. In fact, people have been shown to donate more, or to exhibit an increased likelihood to donate, when they perceived donating to charity as the social norm or the default choice. [33] Therefore, the fact that many people become increasingly in favor of donating to ineffective options, then society will see the creation of a norm for people to give ineffectively. [13] As a result, people rely more strongly on their intuitions [34] which lead them to choosing to give ineffectively simply because they know that most others would do the same thing. [13]
People often prioritize giving to charities that align with their subjectively preferred causes. [2] Commonly, people believe charity to be a subjective decision which should not be motivated by numbers, but by care for the cause. This aligns with the theory of warm-glow giving originally proposed by the economist James Andreoni. According to Andreoni (1990), individuals gain satisfaction from the act of giving but are not concerned about the benefits generated by their act. [35] [2]
Moral circle expansion is the concept of increasing one's number and kind of subjects deserving of moral concern over time. [36] The establishment of one's moral circle depends on spatial, biological, and temporal proximity. [36] [1] For instance, many donors in WEIRD countries tend to favor charities that conduct work within their respective geographical boundaries. [5] In terms of biological distance, people favor donating money to help humans instead of animals, even in cases when animals can have equal cognitive and suffering capacities. [37] [38] The idea of temporal proximity relates to people's tendency to prefer helping current generations over future ones. [39] [1]
Scope neglect (or scope insensitivity) is the idea that people are numb to the number of victims in large, high-stake humanitarian situations. [40] [41] Some research has compared this cognitive bias to the economic concept of diminishing marginal utility wherein people demonstrate a decreasing non-linear concern for individuals as the number of people increases. [41]
Donors are averse to giving charities that devote a lot of their expenses to administration [42] or running costs. [12] [18] [43] Several studies have demonstrated the ubiquitous effect of overhead aversion which is commonly attributed to people's conflation between overhead spending and charity cost-effectiveness (or impact). [42] [12] [18] Furthermore, some have argued that when donors learn that a charity uses their donation to fund running costs, donors experience a diminished feeling of warm-glow, [35] which is a significant driver of donation behavior. [42]
Intangible outcomes (such as health interventions, charity effectiveness) are hard to quantify, and many people doubt that they can every be quantified and compared. [1] However, in disciplines such as health economics, health outcomes and interventions are quantified and evaluated using metrics such as quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). [44] In a similar vein, happiness economists have developed the concept of wellbeing-years (WELLBYs) which evaluates effectiveness in terms of life-years lived up to full life satisfaction. [45] Put simply, a WELLBY is given by:
Where is the number of lives remaining from the region's life expectancy and is the change in life satisfaction expected to result from a particular action or intervention. [46] Thus, charity cost-effectiveness analyses use a number of different measures grounded in academic research to quantify their impact, allowing direct comparisons of charities that address multiple causes. [1]
The effective altruism movement does substantial work on identifying the world's most effective charities through charity evaluators such as GiveWell, Giving What We Can, and Animal Charity Evaluators. However, many people are unaware of these organizations and the charities they evaluate, [18] and are strongly driven by emotional responses when estimating the effectiveness of a charity; [18] choosing instead to prioritize those causes to which they have a personal connection. [2]
Altruism is the principle and practice of concern for the well-being and/or happiness of other humans or animals above oneself. While objects of altruistic concern vary, it is an important moral value in many cultures and religions. It may be considered a synonym of selflessness, the opposite of selfishness.
Group selection is a proposed mechanism of evolution in which natural selection acts at the level of the group, instead of at the level of the individual or gene.
Sympathy is the perception of, understanding of, and reaction to the distress or need of another life form.
Reciprocity is a crucial aspect of how people interact and live in society but researchers who study these interactions have often overlooked its importance. Reciprocity, as a fundamental principle in social psychology, revolves around the concept that individuals tend to respond to the actions of others in a manner that mirrors the positive or negative nature of those actions. It involves a mutual exchange of behaviors and reactions, where individuals reciprocate the same type of behavior they have received from others. People's choices in how they behave are mostly based on what they can gain from others in return, while feelings of trust, liking, and togetherness are strongly influenced by the idea of giving and receiving equally
The dictator game is a popular experimental instrument in social psychology and economics, a derivative of the ultimatum game. The term "game" is a misnomer because it captures a decision by a single player: to send money to another or not. Thus, the dictator has the most power and holds the preferred position in this “game.” Although the “dictator” has the most power and presents a take it or leave it offer, the game has mixed results based on different behavioral attributes. The results – where most "dictators" choose to send money – evidence the role of fairness and norms in economic behavior, and undermine the assumption of narrow self-interest when given the opportunity to maximise one's own profits.
The norm of reciprocity requires that people repay in kind what others have done for them. It can be understood as the expectation that people will respond to each other by returning benefits for benefits, and with either indifference or hostility to harms. The social norm of reciprocity may take different forms in different areas of social life, or in different societies. This is distinct from related ideas such as gratitude, the Golden Rule, or mutual goodwill. See reciprocity for an analysis of the concepts involved.
The practice of charity, which is the voluntary provision of assistance to those in need, serves as a humanitarian act, and is unmotivated by self-interest. Various philosophies about charity exist, with frequent associations with religion.
Prosocial behavior, or intent to benefit others, is a social behavior that "benefit[s] other people or society as a whole", "such as helping, sharing, donating, co-operating, and volunteering". Obeying the rules and conforming to socially accepted behaviors are also regarded as prosocial behaviors. These actions may be motivated by empathy and by concern about the welfare and rights of others, as well as for egoistic or practical concerns, such as one's social status or reputation, hope for direct or indirect reciprocity, or adherence to one's perceived system of fairness. It may also be motivated by altruism, though the existence of pure altruism is somewhat disputed, and some have argued that this falls into philosophical rather than psychological realm of debate. Evidence suggests that pro sociality is central to the well-being of social groups across a range of scales, including schools. Prosocial behavior in the classroom can have a significant impact on a student's motivation for learning and contributions to the classroom and larger community. In the workplace, prosocial behaviour can have a significant impact on team psychological safety, as well as positive indirect effects on employee's helping behaviors and task performance. Empathy is a strong motive in eliciting prosocial behavior, and has deep evolutionary roots.
Humanity is a virtue linked with altruistic ethics derived from the human condition. It signifies human love and compassion towards each other. Humanity differs from mere justice in that there is a level of altruism towards individuals included in humanity more so than in the fairness found in justice. That is, humanity, and the acts of love, altruism, and social intelligence are typically individual strengths while fairness is generally expanded to all. Humanity is one of six virtues that are consistent across all cultures.
Warm-glow giving is an economic theory describing the emotional reward of giving to others. According to the original warm-glow model developed by James Andreoni, people experience a sense of joy and satisfaction for "doing their part" to help others. This satisfaction - or "warm glow" - represents the selfish pleasure derived from "doing good", regardless of the actual impact of one's generosity. Within the warm-glow framework, people may be "impurely altruistic", meaning they simultaneously maintain both altruistic and egoistic (selfish) motivations for giving. This may be partially due to the fact that "warm glow" sometimes gives people credit for the contributions they make, such as a plaque with their name or a system where they can make donations publicly so other people know the "good" they are doing for the community.
Social preferences describe the human tendency to not only care about one's own material payoff, but also the reference group's payoff or/and the intention that leads to the payoff. Social preferences are studied extensively in behavioral and experimental economics and social psychology. Types of social preferences include altruism, fairness, reciprocity, and inequity aversion. The field of economics originally assumed that humans were rational economic actors, and as it became apparent that this was not the case, the field began to change. The research of social preferences in economics started with lab experiments in 1980, where experimental economists found subjects' behavior deviated systematically from self-interest behavior in economic games such as ultimatum game and dictator game. These experimental findings then inspired various new economic models to characterize agent's altruism, fairness and reciprocity concern between 1990 and 2010. More recently, there are growing amounts of field experiments that study the shaping of social preference and its applications throughout society.
Third-party punishment, or altruistic punishment, is punishment of a transgressor which is administered, not by a victim of the transgression, but rather by a third party not directly affected by the transgression. It has been argued that third-party punishments are the essence of social norms, as they are an evolutionarily stable strategy, unlike second-party punishments. It has also been shown that third-party punishments are exhibited in all examined populations, though the magnitude of the punishments varies greatly, and that costly punishment co-varies with altruistic behavior. Differences between within-group and inter-group altruistic punishments have also been observed.
Nudge theory is a concept in behavioral economics, decision making, behavioral policy, social psychology, consumer behavior, and related behavioral sciences that proposes adaptive designs of the decision environment as ways to influence the behavior and decision-making of groups or individuals. Nudging contrasts with other ways to achieve compliance, such as education, legislation or enforcement.
Effective altruism is a 21st-century philosophical and social movement that advocates "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis". People who pursue the goals of effective altruism, sometimes called effective altruists, may choose careers based on the amount of good that they expect the career to achieve or donate to charities based on the goal of maximising positive impact. They may work on the prioritization of scientific projects, entrepreneurial ventures, and policy initiatives estimated to save the most lives or reduce the most suffering.
Earning to give involves deliberately pursuing a high-earning career for the purpose of donating a significant portion of earned income, typically because of a desire to do effective altruism. Advocates of earning to give contend that maximizing the amount one can donate to charity is an important consideration for individuals when deciding what career to pursue.
Elevation is an emotion elicited by witnessing actual or imagined virtuous acts of remarkable moral goodness. It is experienced as a distinct feeling of warmth and expansion that is accompanied by appreciation and affection for the individual whose exceptional conduct is being observed. Elevation motivates those who experience it to open up to, affiliate with, and assist others. Elevation makes an individual feel lifted up and optimistic about humanity.
The watching-eye effect says that people behave more altruistically and exhibit less antisocial behavior in the presence of images that depict eyes, because these images insinuate that they are being watched. Eyes are strong signals of perception for humans. They signify that our actions are being seen and paid attention to even through mere depictions of eyes.
Moral emotions are a variety of social emotions that are involved in forming and communicating moral judgments and decisions, and in motivating behavioral responses to one's own and others' moral behavior. As defined by Jonathan Haidt, moral emotions "are linked to the interests or welfare either of a society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent". A person may not always have clear words to articulate, yet simultaneously, that same person knows it to be true deep down inside.
Do-gooder derogation is a phenomenon where a person's morally motivated behavior leads to them being perceived negatively by others. The term "do-gooder" refers to a person who deviates from the majority in terms of behavior, because of their morality.
Parochial altruism is a concept in the fields of social psychology, evolutionary biology, and anthropology that describes altruism towards an in-group, often accompanied by hostility towards an out-group. It is a combination of altruism, defined as behavior done for the benefit of others without direct effect to the self, and parochialism, which refers to having a limited viewpoint. Together, these concepts create parochial altruism, or altruism that is limited in scope to one's in-group. Parochial altruism is closely related to the concepts of in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination. Research has suggested that parochial altruism may have evolved in humans to promote high levels of in-group cooperation, which is advantageous for group survival. Parochial altruism is often evoked to explain social behaviors within and between groups, such as why people are cooperative within their social groups and why they may be aggressive towards other social groups.
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