Why do we help others?

Issue 4: On warm glow altruism; how going to the theatre can increase prosociality; the evolutionary benefits of friendliness; and how climate advocacy can help on the dating scene.

This is National Volunteer Week, which shines a light on the people and causes that inspire us to serve. So we wanted to shine a light on the psychology behind helping and supporting others.

To learn more about this issue, a new paper conducted a natural field experiment with 540,000 Alaskans. The researchers compared two of the main motivations for charitable giving: (1) benefits to the self versus (2) benefits to others. Which would be more effective? Appeals to “pure altruism”, which is only about benefiting other people? Or appeals to so-called '“impure altruism”, in which doing good for others also creates a warm glow in ourselves—a side-benefit to helping?

You can see the appeals in the image below: