Generosity without borders: The interactive effect of spatial distance and donation goals on charitable giving

A. Jing Xu, M. A. Rodas, C. J. Torelli
Organizational Behavior and 
Human Decision Processes
Volume 161, November 2020, Pages 65-78

Abstract

Although past research suggests that people are more likely to donate money to nearby causes to maximize their positive impact on others’ lives, donations to foreign causes are growing rapidly. Incorporating both other-focused impact goals and self-focused moral goals into our conceptualization, we propose that an interplay between the accessibility of impact/moral goals and the spatial distance between donors and recipients of charitable causes (e.g., faraway vs. nearby recipients) influences charitable behaviors (e.g., donation amounts and charitable choices). Specifically, when the goal to maintain a moral self-concept (impact recipients’ lives) is accessible, donors experience a more expansive conception of their moral circle (apply the “closeness-equals-impact” heuristic) and donate more money to faraway (nearby) causes. We further demonstrate that moral (impact) goals are more abstract (concrete) motivations, and their effects also emerge when priming an abstract (concrete) mindset. Five studies support these predictions while ruling out alternative interpretations.

Highlights

• The goal to maintain a moral self-concept leads to higher donations to faraway causes.

• This effect is mediated by perceived expansion of one’s circle of moral regard.

• The goal to impact recipients’ lives leads to higher donations to nearby causes.

• Moral goals are abstract and can be activated by an abstract mindset.

• Impact goals are concrete and can be activated by a concrete mindset.

• Self-importance of moral identity moderates the effect of spatial distance on donations.

The research is here.

Are religious people more moral?

Dimitris Xygalatas
The San Francisco Chronicle
Originally published October 23, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

For one thing, the ethical ideals of one religion might seem immoral to members of another. For instance, in the 19th century, Mormons considered polygamy a moral imperative, while Catholics saw it as a mortal sin.

Moreover, religious ideals of moral behavior are often limited to group members and might even be accompanied by outright hatred against other groups. In 1543, for example, Martin Luther, one of the fathers of Protestantism, published a treatise titled “On the Jews and their Lies,” echoing anti-Semitic sentiments that have been common among various religious groups for centuries.

These examples also reveal that religious morality can and does change with the ebb and flow of the surrounding culture. In recent years, several Anglican churches have revised their moral views to allow contraception, the ordination of women and the blessing of same-sex unions.

In any case, religiosity is only loosely related to theology. That is, the beliefs and behaviors of religious people are not always in accordance with official religious doctrines. Instead, popular religiosity tends to be much more practical and intuitive. This is what religious studies scholars call “theological incorrectness.”

Buddhism, for example, may officially be a religion without gods, but most Buddhists still treat Buddha as a deity. Similarly, the Catholic Church vehemently opposes birth control, but the vast majority of Catholics practice it anyway. In fact, theological incorrectness is the norm rather than the exception among believers.

For this reason, sociologist Mark Chaves called the idea that people behave in accordance with religious beliefs and commandments the “religious congruence fallacy.”

The article is here.

When Doing Some Good Is Evaluated as Worse Than Doing No Good at All

George E. Newman and Daylian M. Cain
Psychological Science published online 8 January 2014

Abstract

In four experiments, we found that the presence of self-interest in the charitable domain was seen as tainting: People evaluated efforts that realized both charitable and personal benefits as worse than analogous behaviors that produced no charitable benefit. This tainted-altruism effect was observed in a variety of contexts and extended to both moral evaluations of other agents and participants’ own behavioral intentions (e.g., reported willingness to hire someone or purchase a company’s products). This effect did not seem to be driven by expectations that profits would be realized at the direct cost of charitable benefits, or the explicit use of charity as a means to an end. Rather, we found that it was related to the accessibility of different counterfactuals: When someone was charitable for self-interested reasons, people considered his or her behavior in the absence of self-interest, ultimately concluding that the person did not behave as altruistically as he or she could have. However, when someone was only selfish, people did not spontaneously consider whether the person could have been more altruistic.

The article is here.

Who Sees What as Fair? Mapping Individual Differences in Valuation of Reciprocity, Charity,and Impartiality

Laura Niemi and Liane Young
Social Justice Research

When scarce resources are allocated, different criteria may be considered: impersonal allocation (impartiality), the needs of specific individuals (charity), or the relational ties between individuals (reciprocity). In the present research, we investigated how people’s perspectives on fairness relate to individual differences in interpersonal orientations. Participants evaluated the fairness of allocations based on (a) impartiality (b) charity, and (c) reciprocity. To assess interpersonal orientations, we administered measures of dispositional empathy (i.e., empathic concern and perspective-taking) and Machiavellianism. Across two studies, Machiavellianism correlated with higher ratings of reciprocity as fair, whereas empathic concern and perspective taking correlated with higher ratings of charity as fair. We discuss these findings in relation to recent neuroscientific research on empathy, fairness, and moral evaluations of resource allocations.

The article is here.

The ethical argument against philanthropy

Olivia Goldhill
Quartz
Originally posted July 22, 2017

Exceptionally wealthy people aren’t a likeable demographic, but they have an easy way to boost personal appeal: Become an exceptionally wealthy philanthropist. When the rich use their money to support a good cause, we’re compelled to compliment their generosity and praise their selfless work.

This is entirely the wrong response, according to Rob Reich, director of the Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford University.

Big philanthropy is, he says, “the odd encouragement of a plutocratic voice in a democratic society.” By offering philanthropists nothing but gratitude, we allow a huge amount of power to go unchecked. “Philanthropy, if you define it as the deployment of private wealth for some public influence, is an exercise of power. In a democratic society, power deserves scrutiny,” he adds.

A philanthropic foundation is a form of unaccountable power quite unlike any other organization in society. Government is at least somewhat beholden to voters, and private companies must contend with marketplace competition and the demands of shareholders.

But until the day that government services alleviate all human need, perhaps we should be willing to overlook the power dynamics of philanthropy—after all, surely charity in unchecked form is better than nothing?

The article is here.

The Arithmetic of Compassion

By Scott Slovic and Paul Slovic
The New York Times
Originally published December 4, 2015

WE all can relate to the saying “One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” Our sympathy for suffering and loss declines precipitously when we are presented with increasing numbers of victims. In the 1950s, the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton studied survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and discovered that a condition he labeled “psychic numbing” enabled them to withstand the psychological trauma of this experience.

Psychologists have since extended Dr. Lifton’s work to show how the concept of psychic numbing has implications in many other situations, such as our response to information about refugee crises, mass extinctions and climate change. This information can be deadening in its abstractness. We struggle to care when the numbers get big. The poet Zbigniew Herbert called this “the arithmetic of compassion.”

How big do the numbers have to be for insensitivity to begin? Not very, it turns out.

The entire article is here.

Can generosity go too far?

By Julian Baggini
The New Statesman
Originally published on August 21, 2015

Here is an excerpt:

We have heard so many stories of misguided projects and misspent money over the years that surely the time has come to demand evidence that the charities we ­support are effective. But how do you measure whether a charity is effective? One answer would be to apply two tests: does it achieve its stated goal and does it do so as cost-efficiently as it can? A charity such as Guide Dogs might pass this test. But for effective altruists, in deciding whether to give to Guide Dogs, you ought to ask another question: could you get more altruistic bang for your buck by giving to something completely different instead?

They say you can. Guide Dogs UK says it costs £32,400 to train a guide dog and its owner and then another £12,800 “to support the working partnership”. In contrast, Singer says you can save someone from going blind in the developing world for between $20 and $100. “If you do the maths,” he writes, “you will see that the choice we face is to provide one person with a guide dog or prevent anywhere between 400 and 2,000 cases of blindness.”

The entire article is here.

Whistle-Blower’s Letter Led to Charity’s Firing of Chief Executive

By RUSS BUETTNER and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
The New York Times
Published: September 15, 2013

Here is an excerpt:

The charity’s chief executive, William E. Rapfogel, had been conspiring with someone at the insurance brokerage, Century Coverage Corporation, to pad the charity’s insurance payments by several hundred thousand dollars a year, according to a person briefed on the investigation.

Mr. Rapfogel, whose annual compensation package exceeded $400,000, pocketed some of the money and was involved in getting the rest to politicians who supply the government grants to the nonprofit organization, the person said.

The charity, widely known as Met Council, informed state authorities of its findings, and more formal inquiries began.

The entire story is here.

The moral behavior of ethics professors: Relationships among self-reported behavior, expressed normative attitude, and directly observed behavior

Eric Schwitzgebel & Joshua Rust
Philosophical Psychology
DOI:10.1080/09515089.2012.727135

Abstract

Do philosophy professors specializing in ethics behave, on average, any morally better than do other professors? If not, do they at least behave more consistently with their expressed values? These questions have never been systematically studied. We examine the self-reported moral attitudes and moral behavior of 198 ethics professors, 208 non-ethicist philosophers, and 167 professors in departments other than philosophy on eight moral issues: academic society membership, voting, staying in touch with one's mother, vegetarianism, organ and blood donation, responsiveness to student emails, charitable giving, and honesty in responding to survey questionnaires. On some issues, we also had direct behavioral measures that we could compare with the self-reports. Ethicists expressed somewhat more stringent normative attitudes on some issues, such as vegetarianism and charitable donation. However, on no issue did ethicists show unequivocally better behavior than the two comparison groups. Our findings on attitude-behavior consistency were mixed: ethicists showed the strongest relationship between behavior and expressed moral attitude regarding voting but the weakest regarding charitable donation. We discuss implications for several models of the relationship between philosophical reflection and real-world moral behavior.

The article is here, hiding behind a paywall.

The Charitable-Industrial Complex

By PETER BUFFETT
The New York Times - Opinionator
Published: July 26, 2013

Here are some excerpts:

Because of who my father is, I’ve been able to occupy some seats I never expected to sit in. Inside any important philanthropy meeting, you witness heads of state meeting with investment managers and corporate leaders. All are searching for answers with their right hand to problems that others in the room have created with their left. There are plenty of statistics that tell us that inequality is continually rising. At the same time, according to the Urban Institute, the nonprofit sector has been steadily growing.

(cut)

As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few, the more heroic it sounds to “give back.” It’s what I would call “conscience laundering” — feeling better about accumulating more than any one person could possibly need to live on by sprinkling a little around as an act of charity.

(cut)

I’m really not calling for an end to capitalism; I’m calling for humanism.

The entire story is here.