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Residents of Racially Diverse Neighborhoods Are More Likely to Help Others
What do you look for in a community? How about helpful, giving residents—people who are eager to lend a hand? Recently published research suggests you’re more likely to find them in racially diverse neighborhoods. A
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Could A More Individualistic World Also Be A More Altruistic One?
Individualism is that rugged frontier quality that reflects a mix of independence, valuing free expression, and eschewing close family ties relative to more distant relationships. And it is on the rise. Not just in the
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Can Kindness Be Taught?
Thanks to a challenge from the Dalai Lama, a number of preschools are trying to teach something that has not always been considered an academic subject: kindness. “Can you look inside yourself and tell me
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Why rewards can backfire
The Guardian: Here’s a story about a man with a machiavellian genius for psychological manipulation. (It comes from the US educator Alfie Kohn, so I’ll Britishise it here.) This man is elderly and lives near a
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Why some people are more altruistic than others
TED: Why do some people do selfless things, helping other people even at risk to their own well-being? Psychology researcher Abigail Marsh studies the motivations of people who do extremely altruistic acts, like donating a
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Paying Do-Gooders Makes Them Less Persuasive
People who receive a financial incentive to raise money for a charity they care about are actually less effective in soliciting donations, even when potential donors have no idea that incentives were involved.
