Psychological barriers to effective altruism
Ineffective Altruism
Ineffective altruism is the practice of ineffective giving.[1] 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.[2][3] In 2022, 72% of the world's adult population donated their money, time, or helped a stranger (approximately 4.2 billion people).[2] Charitable giving is especially substantial. For instance, 2% of the GDP of the United States goes to charities - a total of $450 billion in annual donations.[4] 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][5]
Background
In most day-to-day activities, humans prioritize efficiency; we try to minimize our costs to enjoy a positive return and weight the value we get for our money.[5][6] This line of thinking is commonplace in business and government but scant in charitable giving.[5][7]
Talk about effective altruism.
Talk about the significance of charitable giving globally.
The Paradox of Ineffective Giving
We are motivated to give, but not motivated to give effectively.[5] In financial decision-making, investors prioritize portfolio allocation decisions that would maximize their return, however, when it comes to charitable decision-making, donors prioritize maximizing charity revenues over maximizing impact per unit of money donated.[8]
Obstacles to Effective Giving
Motivational Obstacles
Subjectivity
People often prioritize giving to charities that align with their subjectively preferred causes.[7] 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.[9][7]
Narrow Moral Circle
Scope Neglect (Insensitivity)
Scope neglect (or scope insensitivity) is the idea that people are numb to the number of victims in large, high-stake humanitarian situations.[10][11] 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.[11]
Epistemic Obstacles
Overhead Aversion
Evolutionary Explanation for Ineffective Altruism
References
- ^ a b Caviola, Lucius; Schubert, Stefan; Greene, Joshua D. (July 2021). "The Psychology of (In)Effective Altruism". Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 25 (7): 596–607. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2021.03.015. ISSN 1364-6613.
- ^ a b "CAF World Giving Index 2023" (PDF). Charities Aid Foundation (CAF). 2023. Retrieved 14 November 2023.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "World Giving Index 2022: A global view of giving trends" (PDF). Charities Aid Foundation (CAF). 2022. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Giving USA 2020: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2019. Giving USA Foundation. 2020. ISBN 9780998746654.
- ^ a b c d Burum, Bethany; Nowak, Martin A.; Hoffman, Moshe (December 2020). "An evolutionary explanation for ineffective altruism". Nature Human Behaviour. 4 (12): 1245–1257. doi:10.1038/s41562-020-00950-4. ISSN 2397-3374.
- ^ Caviola, Lucius; Faulmüller, Nadira; Everett, Jim A. C.; Savulescu, Julian; Kahane, Guy (July 2014). "The evaluability bias in charitable giving: Saving administration costs or saving lives?". Judgment and Decision-Making. 9 (4): 303–315.
- ^ a b c Berman, Jonathan Z.; Barasch, Alixandra; Levine, Emma E.; Small, Deborah A. (May 2018). "Impediments to Effective Altruism: The Role of Subjective Preferences in Charitable Giving". Psychological Science. 29 (5): 834–844. doi:10.1177/0956797617747648. ISSN 0956-7976 – via Association for Psychological Science.
- ^ Lewis, Joshua; Small, Deborah (2018). Gershoff, Andrew; Kozinets, Robert; White, Tiffany (eds.). "Ineffective Altruism: Giving Less When Donations Do More". NA - Advances in Consumer Research. 46. Duluth, Minnesota: Association for Consumer Research: 194–198.
- ^ Andreoni, James (1990). "Impure altruism and donations to public goods: A theory of warm-glow giving". The Economic Journal. 100 (401): 464–477.
- ^ Yudkowsky, Eliezer (13 May 2007). "Scope Insensitivity". lesswrong.com. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b Dickert, Stephan; Västfjäll, Daniel; Kleber, Janet; Slovic, Paul (September 2015). "Scope insensitivity: The limits of intuitive valuation of human lives in public policy". Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. 4 (3): 248–255. doi:10.1016/j.jarmac.2014.09.002. ISSN 2211-369X.