Study: People expect others to mirror their own selfishness, generosity:
New research shows that a person's own behavior is the primary driver of how they treat others during brief, zero-sum-game competitions. Generous people tend to reward generous behavior and selfish individuals often punish generosity and reward selfishness – even when it costs them personally. The study found that an individual's own generous or selfish deeds carry more weight than the attitudes and behaviors of others.
[...] Previous research into this arena of human behavior suggested that social norms are the primary factor guiding a person's decision-making in competitive scenarios, said Paul Bogdan, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who led the research in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology with U. of I. psychology professors Florin Dolcos and Sanda Dolcos.
"The prevailing view before this study was that individuals form expectations based on what they view as typical. If everyone around me is selfish, then I'm going to learn to accept selfishness and behave accordingly," Bogdan said. "But we show that your judgments of other people's behavior really depend on how you behave yourself."
[...] Cultural norms toward self-interest or generosity do influence people, as other studies have found, Florin Dolcos said. "But we are not only observers. This study is showing that we filter information about the world through our own view."
Those individuals whose behavior switched from generous to selfish over time were more likely to punish generosity and reward selfishness – but only after their own behavior changed, the team found.
This helps explain the phenomenon of social alignment, for better and for worse, Florin Dolcos said.
"You may have groups of selfish people who are more accepting of other selfish people, and in order to be part of that group, newcomers might display the same behavior," he said.
Ultimately, the study finds that a person's own generous or selfish nature drives their behavior in many arenas of life, Sanda Dolcos said.
"This is not just about decision-making," she said. "It has practical relevance to many types of social interactions and social evaluations."
Journal Reference:
Paul C Bogdan, Florin Dolcos, Matthew Moore, et al., Social Expectations are Primarily Rooted in Reciprocity: An Investigation of Fairness, Cooperation, and Trustworthiness, Cogn Sci. 2023 Aug;47(8):e13326. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13326
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2023, @05:41PM (1 child)
> Ultimately, the study finds that a person's own generous or selfish nature drives their behavior in many arenas of life,
After years of thinking about this (but in different ways from the study), I've concluded that I'm generous with my time (lots of volunteer time), but selfish with my other resources (ie, money). Perhaps an odd combination, given that in many circles it is accepted that: time = money...?
During college years there were periods when I was overwhelmed by obligations, and finally woke up and realized that I was agreeing to help anyone and everyone that asked for a favor--and of course got over-committed. Over-commitment meant that I was letting people down, which also felt bad, so the conclusion from that was to "triage" requests at the start and control my apparent natural generosity that way.
Going forward many years, that process has worked pretty well for me. It's probably all in a Haiku or a Tang Poem from antiquity, but haven't seen enough to find it there...
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday November 13 2023, @05:18PM
Just because a "fact" is accepted as fact doesn't make it so. "Time is money" is a lie told by liars and thieves to steal your labor (to match 1965's minimum wage it would have to be $24.90).
Time is NOT money. And there IS such a thing as a free lunch; there's a fruit tree in my front yard. Its fruit costs nobody anything.
When you have lots of time and little money, or course you'll be more generous with your time than with your money.
It is a disgrace that the richest nation in the world has hunger and homelessness.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday November 11 2023, @05:58PM (2 children)
I'm reasonably generous - meaning I will help others or give something to others if it brings them something overwhelmingly more valuable than what it costs me. That's why I give blood and I donate some of my free time at my local Red Cross thirft-store for example (it helps others at no cost to me and it beats watching TV).
But I always expect nothing from others because I have a very low opinion of humanity in general, so I always assume nothing good comes out of anybody.
But here's the thing: when I do good, others also do good to me. And the weird thing is, it's almost never those I do good to who do good to me. If I believed in new-age mumbo-jumbo, I guess it would be karma in action. But I don't, so it's completely baffling to me.
And because I never expect it, it's always a really nice surprise each time a member of the human race treats me right without wanting anything in return.
So my advice is: don't be a dick but expect others to be dicks, and you'll never be disappointed with your fellow man.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by darkfeline on Saturday November 11 2023, @10:20PM
There's a term that has been going around: main character syndrome. Everyone assumes that they are the main character, everything revolves around them, that their opinion and experiences hold extra weight.
Ironically, this explains both the study and your post. Generous people assume other people are/should be generous. You assume that your experience justifies your personality. You may in fact be in the minority; or practically speaking, there are likely more people who are generous and get taken advantage of.
There is in all likelihood someone with the inverse perspective as you, who is selfish and has had wholly positive experiences to justify their personality.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday November 12 2023, @12:28AM
We naturally lean towards considering everything in a transactional way, even altruism. One alternative is to consider it is as a sort of experimental protocol:
It can help solidify your own ability to assess others' generosity*. Then you can talk to others who share generous behavior, and you'll have some objective data to share as you compare experiences.
I suppose I consider it like any trainable skill: collect, log, and review observations, share with others in the "field", find existing thinking [youtu.be] and books in this area, collect, assemble and apply best practices. It's could just be about collecting your observations alongside executing the mechanics of altruism.
* YMMV, but I suspect (counterintuitively) it converges to 50% accuracy over time.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DadaDoofy on Saturday November 11 2023, @07:45PM (1 child)
It's been long understood that honest people tend to see others as honest, and dishonest people tend to see others as dishonest. This may explain why people in positions of power tend to be liars.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday November 13 2023, @07:58PM
An honest cynic would be one that is honest, but sees dishonesty and is probably right.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by deimios on Sunday November 12 2023, @01:01AM
We've had a saying in Hungarian: "Mindenki magából indul ki" - Everyone starts from within himself. Meaning that the baseline of expectations towards others comes from within. Usually it's to explain that those who expect poor behavior from others do so because of their own poor behavior.
So this is nothing new in history, I'm pretty sure most of the religious books have stories about this.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday November 13 2023, @05:13PM
Yes, sometimes science does surprise us, like when they studied Cannibis' link to cancer expecting pot smokers to get more cancers than cigarette smokers and discovered that those who smoke both pot and cigarettes get half the cancers than those who only smoked cigarettes, as well as stastistically insignificant fewer cancers in potsmokers than nonsmokers.
But I've seen most like this one. A "well dud!" study that would have been a "wow, holy shit" if it had been the other way. It's pretty obvious that sociopaths don't believe in empathy, thinking that it's just an act like they do themselves, that greedy assholes think everyone is a greedy asshole. Thieves think everyone steals, liars think everyone lies and liars are usually also thieves and thieves ale ALWAYS liars; dishonesty is always dishonesty. The dishonest don't believe in honesty.
I would have been both shocked and suspicious if it said anything else and would probably scream for the raw data.
It is a disgrace that the richest nation in the world has hunger and homelessness.