Seminar Overview
An ESRC Seminar Series
Darwin’s Medicine: Evolutionary Psychology and its Applications
3rd Workshop
“Charity giving, philanthropy, and volunteering: Implications from
evolutionary and social sciences”
Friday 29 May 2009, University of Kent
This third seminar in the ESRC-funded series, titled “Darwin’s medicine: Evolutionary
psychology and its applications” focused on understanding charity giving and other
philanthropic acts such as volunteering and pro-environmental behaviour from an
evolutionary perspective. The key question of the seminar was how people can be
motivated to engage in altruistic acts, actions that benefit others but come at a
personal cost, using insights from evolutionary psychology and related disciplines.
There were a total of 8 presentations from leading altruism researchers in the UK
and abroad from a diversity of academic backgrounds such as economics,
psychology, anthropology, sociology, and political science. In addition, there were a
number of attendees from the voluntary sector as well as several science journalists.
The day kicked off with a presentation from Professor Mark van Vugt, a psychologist
from Kent and one of the organisers of the Darwin series, who gave an introduction
and overview of the seminar series. Altruism was one of the puzzling behaviours that
Darwin struggled to explain with his theory of evolution. Why would individual
organisms set aside their own interests to help other individuals? He summarized
four key solutions that have been suggested by the literature: (1) kin helping, (2)
reciprocal altruism, (3) reputation-based (competitive) altruism, and (4) tribal
helping. The evolved psychological mechanisms underlying these different
manifestations of altruism can be “exploited” to promote a charity culture in Britain
and various examples were given.
The second speaker, Wendy Iredale from Psychology at Kent, approached the
altruism question from Darwin’s sexual selection theory. She argued that altruism
may have evolved as a mating strategy where men engage in public displays of
charity to impress women, much like the peacock uses his tail to attract the
attention of peacock hens. Wendy presented the results of various psychological
experiments that provided considerable support for this sexual selection hypothesis
of altruism. For instance, in one study she showed that men become more generous
towards a complete stranger in an economics game when being observed by an
attractive female. Women did not show any such increase in generosity when
observed by an equally attractive male.
The third presenter, Dr. Edward Cartwright, from Economics at Kent, agreed with
Iredale that altruism may have a signalling function. He asked the question what kind
of information would persuade potential charity donors to give. He presented a
mathematical model and the result of an experiment showing that information what
previous donors had given (with their names attached) was most effective in raising
contributions. Moreover it was generally ineffective to disclose information that
previous donors had given nothing. He then presented a model that suggested that it
would be better to not provide information about maximum or minimum donation
levels for charities wanting to raise money.
The fourth and fifth speakers were economists both from Nottingham, Prof. Simon
Gaechter and Dr. Benedikt Herrmann. They used data from a large cross- cultural
sample including many countries around the world to look into various aspects of
altruistic giving. The participants in their studies played various economics games for
real money. Prof. Gaechter’s talk focused on the role of punishment. He found
evidence for anti-social punishment in various countries (such as Greece) where
participants used the money they had earned to punish individuals who were not
only cheating but also who were too cooperative. It was not entirely clear why they
did this but Gaechter suggested it may have to do something with establishing a
fierce reputation (as a punisher) or maintaining an egalitarian ethos. He also found
substantial support for individual differences in altruism with most people being
“conditional” cooperators (they would match the donations of others).
Dr. Herrmann’s talk focused on intergroup warfare dilemmas (rent-seeking games)
and he found that people become more altruistic when they can help their group be
victorious over other groups. Furthermore, he found that the opportunity to punish
did not really help increase cooperation levels in the presence of intergroup
competition.
The sixth speaker, Dr Edwin Boezeman, from Psychology at Amsterdam, presented
his research on volunteering. He interviewed volunteers and found that those most
committed to their volunteer organization were the ones who felt most proud of
their organization and respected by their colleagues. In subsequent research he
showed experimentally that manipulating feelings of pride and respect increased
people’s motivation to volunteer substantially.
His presentation was followed by Dr. Iain Wilkinson’s talk on how to promote a
charity culture in Britain. Dr. Wilkinson from Sociology at Kent presented charity data
from Britain, suggesting that most charity money is collected by only a handful of
charity organizations (e.g., Cancer UK, Oxfam, NSPPC). He also showed in a crosscultural comparison that giving to Third world causes was relatively more popular in
Britain than in other countries. For instance, in the US a lot of giving was directed
toward local (religious) organizations.
The final speaker, Sociology professor Margaret Foddy from Sydney, presented data
from a cross-national project on how globalization affected cooperation levels (e.g.,
US, China, Iran). She presented two competing hypotheses, the first being that
globalization (as measured by the access people had to internet, contact with people
from other cultures, etc.) would increase tribalism so that would cooperate less with
members of outgroups. The alternative hypothesis, which was supported by the
data, argued that people’s globalization levels would increase their altruistic giving
to people around the world as globalization would affect a superordinate identity
(“we are the world”).
Thereafter there was a panel discussion with various experts. Prof Dunbar from
Psychology at Oxford (and co-organizer of the seminar series) argued that an
evolutionary framework could bring together scientists from various disciplines
interested in studying altruism. He also argued that most of the more costly forms of
altruism were still kin-based despite the globalization. Prof. Robson from Economics
at Simon Fraser University in Canada, was particularly interested in the dark side of
altruism, the idea that much of people’s generosity is tribal, i.e., directed at their
ingroup vis-a-vis outgroups. Finally, Ian MacQuillin representing the charity
organizations in the UK, gave a word of caution on the impact of evolutionary
psychology on charity giving. He did not think there was much impact yet of
evolutionary psychology but that it would be possible in the future provided that
academics would seek out opportunities to present their findings to the third sector
and that the charity sector in turn would be open to these ideas. He said he would
do his best to improve these relations. On that encouraging note this successful day
finished with drinks in the bar.