Why does it feel good to do good? | 为什么做好事的感觉很好? - FT中文网
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Why does it feel good to do good?
为什么做好事的感觉很好?

After his father died, Tim Harford asked people to consider donating. He was surprised by the response
父亲去世后,蒂姆·哈福德请求人们考虑捐赠。他对人们的反应感到惊讶。
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner,” wrote Adam Smith, famously, in The Wealth of Nations, “but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love.”
亚当·斯密(Adam Smith)在《国富论》(the Wealth of Nations)一书中写道:“我们不是从屠夫、酿酒师或面包师的仁慈中获得晚餐,而是从他们对自身利益的尊重中获得晚餐。”我们的目标不是他们的人性,而是他们的自爱。”
True enough. And yet my recent experience is that there is much to be said for addressing ourselves not to people’s self-love but to their humanity.
说得很对。然而,我最近的经验是,我们不是针对人们的自爱,而是针对他们的人性,这一点很有必要。
I recently posted a Twitter thread telling people what was on my mind. I explained that my father Adrian had died. I posted photographs and described his life: his curiosity, his intelligence, his shy modesty. I told how my father had devoted himself to the care of my dying mother in the 1990s, and had somehow held down his job, kept his children attending school and made sure there was food on the table. And I described the sensitive care my father and mother had both received at the Florence Nightingale hospice in Aylesbury. And, finally, I asked people to consider giving money to the hospice.
我最近在Twitter上发了一个帖子,告诉人们我的想法。我解释说我父亲艾德里安已经去世了。我上传了他的照片,描述了他的生活:他的好奇心、他的智慧、他的害羞谦逊。我告诉他,在上世纪90年代,父亲是如何全身心地照顾我垂死的母亲,并以某种方式保住了自己的工作,让孩子们上学,确保有饭吃。我描述了我的父亲和母亲在艾尔斯伯里的弗洛伦斯·南丁格尔临终关怀医院得到的悉心照顾。最后,我请求人们考虑给临终关怀医院捐款。
People are kind, so I wasn’t surprised to get a warm response. What I did not expect was to receive anonymous donations of three or even four figures. It seemed a lot of money to give incognito to a local charity in a place you might never visit, in memory of a man you probably never met.
人们都很善良,所以得到热情的回应我并不惊讶。我没有想到的是收到了三位数甚至四位数的匿名捐款。为了纪念一个你可能从未见过的人,隐姓埋名给当地一家慈善机构捐了一大笔钱,而这个地方你可能永远不会去。
Economists have a number of theories to explain why anyone gives to a charitable cause. The most cynical — true sometimes, clearly false in this case — is that people are ostentatiously demonstrating their generosity and their riches.
经济学家有很多理论来解释为什么有人会为慈善事业捐款。最讽刺的是,人们在炫耀自己的慷慨和财富,这有时是正确的,但在这种情况下显然是错误的。

Because warm-glow giving is emotional rather than rational, it raises the question of how to persuade people to get themselves in the mood to donate

因为温暖捐赠是感性的,而不是理性的,它提出了一个问题,即如何说服人们让自己处于捐赠的情绪中

At the other end of the spectrum is “pure altruism”. Just as rational consumers maximise their gains as savvy shoppers, picking up the best products at the cheapest possible price, pure altruists also seek the biggest impact for their spending. The difference is merely that pure altruists are aiming to maximise the utility of other people.
另一个极端是“纯粹的利他主义”。正如理性的消费者会像精明的购物者一样,以最便宜的价格买到最好的产品,使自己的收益最大化一样,纯粹的利他主义者也会为自己的消费寻求最大的影响。区别仅仅在于,纯粹的利他主义者的目标是让他人的效用最大化。
That doesn’t quite seem to cover it either. There is a community of “effective altruists” out there, but they tend to prefer hard evidence, not memorial threads on Twitter.
这似乎也不太能说明问题。有一个“有效的利他主义者”的社区,但他们往往更喜欢确凿的证据,而不是在Twitter上的纪念帖子。
The economists Dean Karlan and Daniel Wood have shown there is a tension between evidence and emotion. They tested out fundraising mailshots with a tear-jerking story about a named beneficiary: “She’s known nothing but abject poverty her entire life.” Others got the same emotive tale alongside a paragraph attesting to the “rigorous scientific methodologies” that demonstrated the charity’s impact.
经济学家迪恩•卡兰(Dean Karlan)和丹尼尔•伍德(Daniel Wood)已经表明,证据和情绪之间存在一种紧张关系。他们用一个感人的故事来测试筹款邮件:“她的一生除了一贫如洗什么都不知道。”其他人收到了同样感人的故事,并附上了一段证明该慈善机构影响力的“严格的科学方法”的文字。
Karlan and Wood found that some people who’d previously given big donations came back and gave even more, impressed by the evidence of effectiveness. But smaller donors gave less. Apparently, the scientific evidence turned them off.
卡兰和伍德发现,一些之前捐了大笔钱的人回来后,会捐得更多,因为他们对捐款的有效性印象深刻。但规模较小的捐赠者捐赠较少。显然,科学证据让他们失去了兴趣。


Perhaps they were giving because of what the economist James Andreoni calls the “warm glow”, and John List, another economist, terms “impure altruism”. Warm-glow giving is motivated by altruism of a fuzzier kind. Rather than calculating the most effective target for our donations, instead we give because it feels good to believe we’re doing good.
也许他们之所以捐赠,是因为经济学家詹姆斯•安德烈奥尼(James Andreoni)所说的“温暖的光辉”,以及另一位经济学家约翰•李斯特(John List)所说的“不纯粹的利他主义”。暖光捐赠的动机是一种更模糊的利他主义。我们捐钱不是为了计算最有效的捐款目标,而是因为相信自己在做好事感觉很好。
Because warm-glow giving is emotional rather than rational, it raises the question of how to persuade people to get themselves in the mood to donate. Nobody was better at this game than Charles Sumner Ward, who in the late 19th and early 20th centuries went on a hot streak raising money for the YMCA, the Boy Scouts, Masonic Temples and other employers of his formidable talents.
因为温暖捐赠是感性的,而不是理性的,它提出了一个问题,即如何说服人们让自己处于捐赠的情绪中。19世纪末20世纪初,查尔斯·萨姆纳·沃德(Charles Sumner Ward)为基督教青年会(YMCA)、童子军(Boy Scouts)、共济会庙宇(Masonic Temples)和其他施展其惊人才华的组织筹集资金,可谓是一马当先。
Ward deployed tactics that now seem very modern, including artificial deadlines, large donors who pledged funds only if they were matched by smaller donations, publicity stunts, a campaign clock showing progress towards an often-arbitrary goal and little wearable flags that donors could display. Some of these ideas are now proven to increase donations, but social scientists continue to ask what makes people give.
沃德采用了一些现在看来非常现代的策略,包括人为设定的最后期限、大捐赠者只有在捐款数额较小的情况下才会承诺捐款、宣传噱头、显示某个目标进展的竞选时钟,以及捐赠者可以展示的小可穿戴旗帜。其中一些想法现已被证明可以增加捐款,但社会科学家仍在追问是什么促使人们捐款。
Cynthia Cryder and George Loewenstein have found that tangibility matters. People give more generously if they have first been asked to pick a charity from a list than if they’re shown the list and asked first to choose a donation amount, then to pick the charity to receive that donation. They also donate more if given specific examples of projects the charity does, rather than a more generic description. Being able to clearly picture how the money would be spent induced people to open their wallets.
辛西娅·克雷德(Cynthia Cryder)和乔治·勒文斯坦(George Loewenstein)发现,有形性很重要。如果人们先被要求从名单中选择一个慈善机构,他们会捐得更慷慨,而如果他们先被要求从名单中选择一个捐赠金额,然后再选择接受捐赠的慈善机构。如果给出慈善机构所做项目的具体例子,他们也会捐得更多,而不是更笼统的描述。能够清楚地描绘出这些钱将如何消费,促使人们打开他们的钱包。
Perhaps this explains why people were so generous. I was very specific about my father’s life, my parents’ deaths and the way this particular hospice had helped them. Rather than donating to an abstract ideal, people were giving money to something they could picture clearly.
也许这可以解释为什么人们如此慷慨。我对我父亲的生活、父母的去世以及这家特殊的临终关怀医院对他们的帮助非常具体。人们不是把钱捐给一个抽象的理想,而是捐给他们可以清晰描绘的东西。
Dean Karlan prompted me to consider one other thing: that people who regularly read my column or listen to my podcast have a relationship with me, and my thread on Twitter created an opportunity for them to mark that relationship with compassion and generosity. Whatever the reason, I am grateful. And if this column prompts a warm glow, indulge yourself. Find a charity that means something to you, and give something in memory of someone who mattered to you. The altruism may be “impure”, but to do good feels good.
卡兰院长促使我考虑另一件事:那些经常阅读我的专栏或听我播客的人与我有关系,而我在Twitter上的帖子为他们创造了一个机会,让他们用同情和慷慨来标记这种关系。不管是什么原因,我都很感激。如果这篇专栏文章让你感到温暖,那就尽情享受吧。找一个对你有意义的慈善机构,送一些东西来纪念对你很重要的人。利他主义可能是“不纯洁的”,但做好事感觉很好。
Tim Harford’s new book is “How to Make the World Add Up
蒂姆·哈福德(Tim Harford)的新书是《统计学如何解释世界》
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