Effectively encouraging people to give more (with Josh Greene)
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.
Deep Dive Analysis
12 Topic Outline
Introduction to Giving Multiplier and its Philosophy
Psychology Behind Split Charitable Donations
Why Pure Effectiveness Arguments Fail for Altruism
Evolutionary Perspective on Altruism and Cooperation
Cultural and Economic Influences on Prosocial Behavior
Bridging Political Divides with Cooperative Games
Understanding and Addressing Political Polarization
Applying Psychological Insights to Conflict Resolution
Moral Emotions and the 'Tragedy of Common Sense Morality'
Deep Pragmatism: A Psychologically Informed Utilitarianism
The Nature of Value and Decision-Making
How to Use Giving Multiplier for Effective Giving
6 Key Concepts
Giving Multiplier
A website and research-backed strategy to encourage more effective charitable giving by offering incentives for donors to split their donations between a personal favorite charity and a highly effective, expert-recommended charity. It leverages the appeal of both emotional and rational motivations for giving, making the act of giving feel both warm and smart.
Heart-Head Split
A psychological phenomenon observed in charitable giving where people are especially motivated to make split donations that combine giving to a personal favorite charity (appealing to emotion or 'heart') and a highly effective charity (appealing to reason or 'head'). This combination makes donors feel both warm and competent, leading to increased giving to effective causes.
Affective Polarization
A measure of the emotional distance and animosity between political groups, typically assessed by how warmly or coldly people feel towards their own political party versus the opposing party. Research indicates a steady increase in this gap in the US since the late 1970s.
Tragedy of Common Sense Morality
A concept describing how basic human morality, which evolved to foster cooperation within tribes through social emotions, becomes a source of conflict when different groups with competing interests and values clash. Appealing to these emotions in intergroup conflicts often exacerbates the problem, as they are the very drivers of the conflict.
Deep Pragmatism
A moral philosophy proposed by Josh Greene, described as a psychologically informed version of consequentialism or utilitarianism. It acknowledges the limitations of human psychology, such as biases and the difficulty of consistently acting purely for the 'greater good,' suggesting that practical rules and humility are crucial for effective real-world moral action.
Outgroup Meta-Perceptions
What members of one group believe the opposing group thinks of them. Research suggests that people often exaggerate the negativity of these perceptions, and providing more accurate information (e.g., 'they don't hate you as much as you think') can help soften animosity and foster a precondition for cooperation.
7 Questions Answered
By offering donors the option to split their donation between a charity they personally care about and a highly effective charity, often with an added matching incentive. This approach leverages both emotional and rational motivations for giving, making the act of giving feel both warm and smart.
Human morality is primarily designed for cooperation within a tribe or close social circles, not for universal, impartial altruism towards distant strangers. Pure effectiveness arguments go against these deeply ingrained biological and cultural predispositions.
Understanding evolutionary history helps explain *why* humans have certain moral intuitions and behaviors, but it does not dictate *what* our values *should* be. Assuming what is 'natural' is 'good' (the naturalistic fallacy) can lead to absurd conclusions.
Young children may grow up in sufficiently protected environments that allow them to afford universal altruism. This behavior could serve as an 'opening move' for starting relationships and learning to make friends within their primary social group.
Researchers have reliably measured 'affective polarization' since the late 1970s using 'feeling thermometer' questions, which show a steady increase in the emotional gap between how people feel about their own party versus the opposing party, by approximately 20 degrees.
By creating structured cooperative experiences where members of opposing groups work together on the same team towards a shared goal, especially in ways that promote interdependence and shared success. This fosters respect and trust, even if it doesn't lead to agreement on political issues.
A psychologically-informed utilitarianism (or 'deep pragmatism') acknowledges the limitations of human psychology, such as biases and the difficulty of consistently acting purely for the 'greater good.' It suggests that sticking to common-sense moral rules (like not lying or cheating) and adopting a 'personal best' approach to giving is often more effective and sustainable in the real world than a naive, direct calculation of utility.
11 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.
5 Key Quotes
The idea of pure altruism towards everybody, towards anyone, no matter how distant they may be from you simply because they are suffering, that is a very new idea. And it pushes against the grain of basic human morality.
Josh Greene
Evolution is fundamentally competitive, which means that at the highest level, the strategy is always to compete.
Josh Greene
The most fundamental dictum of the evolutionary logic is to spread your genes. And that means that men at least should be banging down the doors of sperm donation facilities, trying to get their genes into as many wombs as possible.
Josh Greene
What I see this doing is not trying to make everybody agree or get people to give up their moral or political beliefs, but to get people to the point where they can have at least a baseline level of respect and trust for people on the other side.
Josh Greene
The idea is that happiness and suffering are the values behind our values.
Josh Greene
2 Protocols
Encouraging Effective Charitable Giving (Giving Multiplier)
Josh Greene- Present donors with the option to give to their personal favorite charity, a highly effective charity, or a 50-50 split between the two.
- Offer an incentive, such as a matching donation, for donors who choose the split option, making it more appealing.
- Allow a portion of donors to 'pay it forward' by contributing to the matching fund, creating a self-sustaining system.
- For new givers, use a special code (e.g., givingmultiplier.org/clearerthinking) to receive a higher matching rate (e.g., 50% for split donations, 100% for 100% effective charity donations).
- For existing effective givers, directly support the matching fund to enable more people to participate.
Reducing Political Animosity (Cooperative Quiz Game)
Josh Greene (describing work with Evan DeFilippis)- Pair individuals from opposing political groups online as partners.
- Connect partners via chat to facilitate communication and agreement.
- Have partners answer quiz questions designed to promote interdependence, including non-political topics where different groups have specialized knowledge (e.g., pop culture) and political topics where both sides can be right or wrong (e.g., statistics on gun deaths or immigrant crime rates).
- Require both partners to agree on and submit the correct answer to earn points and money, fostering shared success.
- Conduct randomized control trials comparing inter-group play to in-group play to measure effects on animosity, respect, and trust.