Blog comments - Latest Comments in The Selfish Side of 1% for the Planet

Re: The Selfish Side of 1% for the Planet

park3 — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:00:15 -0000

This is quite interesting- the psychological reason "doing well by
doing good" works. Thanks for posting this note.

Re: The Selfish Side of 1% for the Planet

echopkins — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:10:20 -0000

Last year, I read a fascinating book by Walter Goldschmidt, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Psychiatry, and Sociology at UCLA. The Bridge to Humanity: How Affect Hunger Trumps the Selfish Gene argues that we need--biologically and psychologically--affection from others. He defines "affect hunger" as "the urge to get expressions of affection from others." According to Goldschmidt, our "affect hunger" trumps the "selfish gene" that Richard Dawkins famously described in his 1989 book.

Affect hunger might explain the increase in happiness we feel from helping others and observing their or others' expressions of affection or gratitude. It might also help explain why costumers would likely be more loyal to charitable companies than selfish companies, all other things remaining equal.

But I'd bet there are plenty of other theories that would explain why customers are likely to be more loyal to charitable companies. Economists, behavioral economists, economic sociologists, political scientists, psychiatrists, and social psychologists probably offer a handful of different explanations.

I'd like to learn more about how the amounts and forms of companies' charitable giving influence increases in the numbers or percentages of their loyal customers. Maybe social capital, marketing, or public relations gurus use some sort of rule of thumb when predicting the customer loyalty ROI for different forms or amounts of companies' charitable contributions.

Re: The Selfish Side of 1% for the Planet

park3 — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:07:08 -0000

Good questions. The idea also reminded me of something I once heard
about connections between people. I was told that someone doing a
favor for you causes them to make an investment in you, and hence to
identify more strongly with you than if you do a favor for them. I
would have thought the other way around. I believe there is a common
thread between this idea and HBS's theory that has something to do
with making a conscious sacrifice for someone else, and feeling better
about oneself for doing it.

Re: The Selfish Side of 1% for the Planet

David Meyer — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:19:21 -0000

I love this notion, but I am skeptical at the science behind it. Does spending on others lead to happiness, or does happiness lead to spending on others? The structure of the experiments didn't seem to extract the causality. On the other hand, it intuitively feels right, doesn't it?