Possessed
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There are a number of ways our selfish behaviour can be moderated, especially when attention is drawn to us. For example, simply looking in a mirror forces adults literally to self-reflect, which studies have shown reduces cheating on a test.21 This effect of mirrored self-focus on morality is consistent with classic studies demonstrating that children tend to help themselves less on Halloween night when the bowl of treats is placed in front of a mirror.22 When we think we are being watched, we tend to behave ourselves. If the fear of exposure regulates our transgressions, then religions with an all-seeing God may operate to foster moral behaviour precisely because followers think that they are constantly observed.23 Most of the world’s religions promote pro-sociality in their teachings and practices. There is a common assumption that religions foster kindness and generosity, as epitomized by the parable of the Good Samaritan in Christianity.
One problem with this moral view of religion is that, despite the stereotypes, there is very little evidence that religious people are more generous than non-religious people.24 It is true that many religions engage in activities that help the less fortunate, but that kind of organized altruism does not necessarily operate in worshippers’ daily lives. Also, there is no difference in the generosity of religious and non-religious players in the Dictator Game unless religious players are reminded of God in subtle ways. For example, if they are asked to unscramble sentences that contain the words ‘spirit’, ‘divine’, ‘God’, ‘sacred’, or ‘prophet’, then they act generously.25 Even environmental cues work. Moroccan traders in the Marrakesh markets are much more willing to donate money to a charity when the Muslim call to prayer can be heard in the background.26 But this generosity is not restricted to the religious: everyone is more generous when they are reminded of secular ideals of equality through subtle priming with the words ‘civic’, ‘jury’, ‘court’, ‘police’ and ‘contract’.27 What these studies tell us is that we carry around a legacy of our early childish self-interest, but can be nudged to be more pro-social by subtle cues.
Even if people are kind and generous in one context, it does not necessarily translate to every situation. This hypocrisy is known as ‘moral self-licensing’, where individuals who behave in a moral way in one situation can later display behaviours that are inconsistent in another.28 Past good deeds can liberate individuals to engage in behaviours that are immoral, unethical, or otherwise problematic; behaviours that they would otherwise avoid for fear of feeling or appearing immoral. Someone who volunteers to help at their church fundraiser to help the poor may later decide not to donate to another charity. When asked to write either about their positive or negative moral traits, those that describe themselves as more generous donate less to a charity, whereas those who reflect on how bad they are, donate more.29
There is also a social cachet in being seen to be generous, especially when it comes to donations. For every philanthropist there is some building, prize, award, grant, wing or ward named after them. There are some anonymous donors but, in general, most benefactors (and their families) take pride in these public acknowledgements – unless, of course, others deem the source of benefaction to be the product of ill-gotten gains. Consider the controversy over Edward Colston, a seventeenth-century Bristol merchant and philanthropist who made a fortune from slavery. Across Bristol there are churches, schools, halls and institutions named after him. But not for much longer, as many Bristolians regard such commemorations as hypocritical and have lobbied successfully to have these institutions renamed to cut ties with Colston and disown his legacy.
Assuming your sources of wealth and intentions are honest, sharing stuff empowers you to form and strengthen social bonds. It signals that you are kind, generous, empathetic and an all-round good person. Nobody likes a miser or a hoarder. Whether from religious teachings or the wisdom of elders, we are warned about greed, avarice, envy and all manner of negative emotions associated with the pursuit of material wealth. Up and down the country, many parents are constantly reminding their children to share because it will make them more popular and acceptable to the rest of society. Failure to do so can result in retribution and ostracism.
Getting Even
The flipside of fairness of course is that when others try to take advantage we seem readily prepared to administer punishment. Not only are we wary of those who do not share, but we are prepared to pay for the opportunity to punish them. Imagine the following scenario. Would you willingly accept $10 for doing nothing if there were no strings attached? Why would you ever say no? Now imagine a different scenario, where I offer $100 to another person who would be allowed to keep some of it but only if they shared some with you. Whether or not they keep any money depends on your decision because you ultimately control the outcome – hence the name of this scenario, the ‘Ultimatum Game’. Now if they offered you $10 and kept $90 for themselves, would you accept the terms?
Your answer depends on who you think the other person is, and which part of the world you are from. An ambitious study set out to examine the Ultimatum Game in fifteen small-scale societies.30 Responses were mixed because participants, presented with the strange Westerner offering money in a game, try to relate it to similar situations in their own cultures. In the gift-giving societies of Melanesia, on average they offer more than half the money in the Ultimatum Game. But even that generous amount might be rejected because in these societies, accepting gifts, even unsolicited ones, implies a strong obligation to reciprocate at some future time. In other words, ‘What’s the catch?’ At the other extreme, the African hunter-gatherer Hazda tribe of Tanzania typically offer small amounts, and also suffer high rejection rates in the Ultimatum Game. These people live in insular societies with little co-operation, sharing or exchange with outsiders or strangers.
In Western cultures, most adults playing this game offer nearly half the money, and very few receivers will accept an offer less than $20. Even though this is a one-off opportunity, we would still reject the $10 offer – why? In both scenarios, you would get exactly the same amount of money for doing nothing, and yet half the people questioned think that in the second scenario it is unfair to be offered anything below 20 per cent of the total. Brain-imaging studies reveal that this is largely an emotional response, as these low offers are associated with areas activated by negative experiences such as disgust.31 We feel vengeful in that we would prefer to punish the other person at our own expense rather than accept something for nothing.
The Ultimatum Game is clearly a hypothetical scenario, but it does reveal something profound about human nature. It challenges the notion of selfless giving as well as that of Homo Economicus, because rejecting offers is neither kind nor is it self-maximizing. An altruist should not care what is offered because rejection leads to no one benefitting, whereas Homo Economicus should accept whatever is offered because it is better than nothing.
The reason for rejecting offers is not economic, but rather psychological. When the Ultimatum Game is played against a computer, people take whatever amount is offered.32 We only seem to be sensitive to offers from other humans, which is why it is a fascinating glimpse into the psychology of fairness. Moreover, in another version of the game, where the proposer gets to keep any money knowing the receiver cannot veto their offer, they still tend to offer something. This indicates that our behaviour is guided by fairness, a principle that we apply to other humans but not machines and rarely to animals. Our closest cousin the chimpanzee, playing a version of the Ultimatum Game, is happy to accept any offer.33
Reciprocity is a predisposition to share with others, and to punish those who violate the norms of fairness. Remember the tragedy of the commons as an explanation for why individuals who act selfishly threaten the future for all? Could retaliation and fear of punishment be the way to solve the tragedy of the commons, by threatening individuals who help themselves to some shared resource more than others? Martin Nowak, a Harvard mathematical biologist, thinks that retribution is neither common, nor the best way
to resolve the tragedy of the commons. When we believe that others are cheating in real life, we may simply withdraw and refuse to co-operate. Rather than punishment, Nowak has found that the best way to solve the tragedy of the commons is by a combination of communication, reward and ownership.
The problem of the tragedy of the commons is that we rarely have the opportunity to punish individuals ourselves. In fact, identifying those who cheat on a common resource is not that easy. We may dislike cheats and feel anger, but who are they? Do you know who cheats on their taxes? It is not something that people readily admit. For these reasons, Nowak argues that people are motivated by shared interest, and the best way to encourage that is to reward them for contributing and to give them a sense of ownership. Yes, punish the cheats through the strong arm of the law, but reward individuals who co-operate through the power of reputation. Becoming known as a team player generates a positive motivation in most of us, which, in turn, means that a) we will be more liked by others, and b) we are less likely to transgress. In his book SuperCooperators,34 Nowak advocates that paying car workers bonuses for greater productivity is much more effective than fining them for falling behind. An even more powerful motivator for contributing to a joint effort is mutual ownership. We are more likely to share when we believe that we have worked together to achieve a common goal.
We hinted at the opportunity for retaliation when we considered the rise of political populism in Chapter 1. We may not often get the opportunity to punish specific others, but we can express our indignation at the voting booth.35 In 2016, the Yale psychologist Molly Crockett wrote in the Guardian that human behaviour in these economic games could help to explain why the least well-off in UK society voted for Brexit, even though they were warned that they would suffer the greatest negative consequences. At the time of the referendum, there was so much disinformation and uncertainty circulating that the electorate were never really in a position to make an informed decision about what would be the best outcome, but even if they had many would still have preferred to vote for a change that they thought would hurt those in power. They had nothing to lose but, rather, had an opportunity to express their anger at a system that they felt had kept them down. Other leave voters felt they were losing control of the country and were resentful at what they perceived as a loss of sovereignty and traditional values. Both groups wanted to express their anger.
This need for self-expression is predicted by behaviour on the Ultimatum Game. Those individuals who are most likely to reject offers also endorse statements such as ‘I do not want someone to interfere with my business’ and ‘I do not like having someone else’s opinion imposed on me’, clearly echoing the same sorts of sentiments expressed by the Brexiteers.36 What is remarkable is that the need to express anger is so strong that individuals will still reject offers in a version of the game known as the ‘Impunity Game’, where the proposer is not penalized for a rejected offer but gets to keep their payoff.37 In other words, if I am offered $10 knowing that the other person will still get $90 irrespective of my decision, I’d rather reject the offer anyway, even if that choice is private, in order to keep my integrity.
The implications from this research for the political sphere is that all this pent-up resentment could have been avoided if the Brexiteers had been listened to, rather than dismissed as ignorant or embittered. Again, the Ultimatum Game reveals that if recipients are able to communicate their anger to proposers, then low offers are more likely to be accepted.38 Even if their frustration and anger does not reach the proposer, but is simply broadcast to others, then responders are more willing to accept derisory offers so long as everyone knows that they are not a pushover.39 Giving people the opportunity to complain is sufficient, even if it is ineffectual, because it restores an illusion of control and ownership of opinions. Communication is critical when it comes to resolving differences, not retaliation.
Molly Crockett ends her article with a stark warning that one should not rely on economics when it comes to predicting human behaviour, and that the same perceived sense of injustice is fuelling the rise of populism across Europe and in the US: ‘Those who wish to engage with these voters would be well-advised to recognise the human need to feel that someone – anyone – is listening.’ If only the Democrats had listened to her; her article was published in July 2016, four months before the US election that heralded the arrival of Trump.
LET’S PULL TOGETHER
Young children are sensitive to inequality, expect it from others but not of themselves and are reluctant to share. There is, however, one set of circumstances which seems to trigger spontaneous sharing in children: those situations where they have to work collaboratively in order to gain a mutual benefit. Michael Tomasello and his colleagues in Leipzig set about testing his idea about the importance of co-operation in the evolution of human pro-sociality.40 Pairs of three-year-olds had to work together to pull on two ropes simultaneously in order to dislodge four marbles. The apparatus was rigged so that it delivered three marbles to one child but only one to the other. In this situation, the ‘lucky’ child gave one of his three marbles to the ‘unlucky’ child. However, when there was no need for a collaborative effort, such as a windfall, they did not share.
In the face of a selfish bias, nothing brings people together more than a tragedy where they have to work together. In 2017 the UK suffered a spate of terrorist attacks in London and Manchester. Each of these atrocities revealed the dark side of human nature in the callousness of individuals to inflict suffering on innocent others, but also the willingness of the majority to come to the assistance of those in need. The general public responded to these attacks with a wave of support for the survivors and the families of the victims. The blood-donor centres in Manchester received over 1,000 calls per hour following the bombing of the Ariana Grande concert.41 People responded to the plight of others and wanted to help in whatever way they could.
This humanitarian reaction is something that we develop first as children. In 2008, a team of researchers were studying sharing in six- and nine-year-olds from the Sichuan province of China using the Dictator Game when an earthquake, registering a massive 8 points on the Richter scale, struck, killing over 87,000 people.42 Here was an unexpected chance to measure children’s altruistic behaviour in a real setting where people were suffering. Prior to the earthquake, Chinese children were just like others around the world. Nine-year-olds were more generous than six-year-olds, as measured by the Dictator Game. One month after the disaster, almost all the children studied had been left homeless and in dire straits. Now, the Dictator Game revealed a change in altruistic behaviour. Six-year-olds in the affected region became even more selfish, sharing less than before the earthquake, whereas nine-year-olds did the opposite: they shared even more. Three years after the Sichuan disaster, patterns of sharing on the Dictator Game had reverted to those typical of six- and nine-year-olds across the world, suggesting that generosity is sensitive to adversity and may be a coping mechanism. By the time we reach middle childhood, we have thrown off our earlier self-interest and come to the aid of others when they need help.
Wealth empowers individuals. The privileges provided by ownership accumulate, leading to an ever-increasing advantage as the wealthiest have access to opportunities not available to the least well-off. These include better education, health, housing, stable home environments and all the other factors that contribute to success. Most wealthy people pass those advantages on to their children (with some notable exceptions), but many also share their wealth either indirectly, through government intervention, or directly through acts of charity.
In understanding the economics of human behaviour and, in particular, charitable donations, a pure model of altruism has failed and been replaced by impure altruism, where donors give to help others but also because they gain some comfort from the act of giving; that is, they experience a ‘warm glow’ from the joy of giving.43 Standard mathematical models of gift-giving fail to take into account th
at human nature is motivated by pride, empathy, guilt, shame and all manner of emotional states that are at the root of why people want to help others.
In every realm of human activity, we strive for those positive experiences associated with helping and avoid those associated with guilt and shame. In one clever study, adults were told that they would earn $10 for their participation and at the end they could also make a donation to their favourite charity.44 There was one important rule. Potential donors were told that their selected charity would receive no more and no less than $10, with the difference being made up by the experimenter running the study. In other words, if you donated $4, the experimenter would contribute an additional $6 to make the total up to $10. If you decided to donate nothing, the charity would still get $10 given to them by the experimenter. It did not matter what the participants did, as the charity would still get a $10 donation in total. Just over half the adults (57 per cent) still decided to make an average donation of $2, even though they did not have to. The only reason that they could have done this was because they thought it was the right thing to do, as their behaviour had no additional benefit for the charity.