Effectively encouraging people to give more (with Josh Greene)

Dec 15, 2023 1h 27m 11 insights Episode Page ↗
Spencer Greenberg speaks with Josh Green about his work on incentivizing charitable giving with Giving Multiplier, diffusing political animosity through cooperative quiz games, and the psychology of moral emotions and cooperation.
Actionable Insights

1. Reduce Political Animosity Cooperatively

To reduce negative attitudes between opposing groups, put people on the same team to work together in an interdependent way, ensuring the team succeeds and benefits are shared. This fosters positive attitudes that can extend beyond the individual to the group.

2. Incentivize Effective Charitable Giving

When making charitable donations, consider a ‘split donation’ approach where you give partly to a personal favorite charity and partly to a highly effective charity. This leverages both emotional satisfaction and a sense of doing something ‘smart and effective,’ leading to greater overall giving to effective causes.

3. Practice Psychologically-Informed Morality

Adopt ‘deep pragmatism,’ a psychologically informed utilitarianism, which aims to maximize the greater good while acknowledging human psychological limitations. This means sticking to common-sense moral rules and setting realistic personal goals for altruism (‘personal best’) to avoid burnout and maintain relationships.

4. Bridge Divides with Quiz Games

Engage opposing political groups (e.g., Republicans and Democrats) as partners in a quiz game where they must chat and agree on answers to earn points/money. This creates an experience of working together, learning from each other, and seeing the other side as competent and trustworthy, leading to reduced animosity and increased respect.

5. Correct Outgroup Perception Exaggerations

Expose people to more accurate information about what the ‘other side’ thinks of them, particularly that their negative perceptions are often exaggerated. Correcting these ‘outgroup meta perceptions’ can soften animosity, as a precondition for cooperation is believing the other side doesn’t hate you.

6. Avoid Ineffective Conflict Resolution

Do not attempt to resolve intergroup conflicts by merely telling people why they are wrong, or by unstructured dialogue. Such approaches often cause people to dig in, have no positive effects, and can even backfire, hardening partisanship.

7. Fund Charitable Matching Programs

If you are already committed to supporting highly effective charities, consider directly supporting matching funds for platforms like Giving Multiplier. This enables the platform to offer incentives to new donors, spreading effective giving further and creating a ‘virtuous cycle.’

8. Share Economic Growth Equitably

Promote economic growth and ensure its benefits are shared equitably across society. When economic growth benefits are widely shared, it can be a great boon to cooperation, reducing scarcity mindsets and ‘us versus them’ animosity.

9. Form New Daily Habits

Use simple techniques from programs like ‘Daily Ritual’ (clearerthinking.org) to form new beneficial daily habits, such as improving diet, learning a skill, or daily exercise. These techniques can help lock in new activities, making positive changes to daily routines.

10. Enhance Critical Thinking Skills

Engage with interactive programs and tools on clearerthinking.org, such as the rationality test or common misconceptions game, to test and improve critical thinking. These tools integrate insights from psychology and economics to help make better decisions, create new habits, and achieve goals.

11. Strategize for Wealth Accumulation

To get moderately rich (multi-millions), consider owning a business with some monopolistic pricing power, like a car wash or dealership in an area with few competitors. For extreme wealth, consider starting a tech startup or becoming a professional investor/hedge fund manager.