Who would you vote off the island: the selfish ass or the generous spirit? The selfish ass, right? Rational.

WSU scientist Craig Parks along with Asako Stone set out to figure out exactly how much loutish behavior a group will tolerate before throwing the selfish out. What they discovered is far more interesting:

…we also observed a completely unanticipated and, we argue, more interesting result: Those who give much to the group effort yet take little of its subsequent reward are not applauded but rather targeted for expulsion. The effect was replicated across three subsequent studies. Two of these studies ruled out some rather mundane explanations for the finding (lack of understanding of the task by the benevolent other, the other behaving unpredictably), and a third suggested that people are motivated to expel the benevolent other either for self-image reasons or because the other is not adhering to common rules of behavior. In this article, we report on this series of studies.

What the hell. The authors go on to attempt to explain why:

These data, then, provide potential explanations for why people want to remove a benevolent individual from the group. In some cases, the individual makes others feel they look bad in comparison, and, in other cases, the person is seen as violating rules of social interaction for mixed-motive situations. As we solicited these explanations after the expulsion preference had been stated, it is certainly possible that they represent not motivations for removing a benevolent other but rather rationalizations for why subjects want the benevolent person removed.

If you were looking for an empiric basis for the “Keep the government’s hands off my Medicare” red state, federal subsidy dependent elderly white teapartier, this is a good place to start.

Jonathan Golob is an actual doctor.

21 replies on “Take Your Generosity and Shove It, Buddy”

  1. Wow – an interesting new framework for strategizing ways to actually start reaching tea partiers to replace the benefit they derive from rationalization with something less harmful to the nation.

    Ironically, this framework also provides a view of why the political will to find new ways to engage the tea partiers to bring them around can get drowned out, internally and externally, by the primitive wish to preserve tea partiers as a permanent group toward whom we can enjoy a feeling of superiority, and whom we believe we can mock with impunity. Talk about rationalization.

  2. So instead of “seeing some good in everyone” we’d be better off understanding the bad in everyone. And there is clearly a lot of bad, especially those who loudly proclaim their own virtue, like Sarah Palin’s crowd.

  5. Isn’t the argument from the elderly teapartier grounded in the fact that they paid taxes their entire working lives? What about unemployed welfare recipients? Seems there’d be a gray area between labeling them as either generous or selfish… perhaps pitiable.

  7. we had a roommate who was a “nice guy”… he’d always offer us beers and it’d seem like it was ok to just take them whenever, and when we bought beer he was of course always welcome to them. but he never took our beer. it was baffling because we were kind of like “come on, if you want a beer take a goddamn beer. we know you know we owe you”. by not ever taking our beer he quickly became disliked in the house.

    so yeah, that study seems about right.

  10. @7 – I’ve had this happen too! WHY DO WE DO THAT???? I’d feel better if my roommate would occasionally bum stuff from me, and I’m thrilled when he does.

  11. @7 – I’ve had this happen too! WHY DO WE DO THAT???? I’d feel better if my roommate would occasionally bum stuff from me, and I’m thrilled when he does.

  12. I think some of it has to do with with perceived debt.

    If everyone involved is contributing somewhat evenly or proportionately by various metrics, then it’s easy to feel good about the dynamic. You’re square with the members.

    When someone is not only contributing out of proportion, but staving off attempts to square the account, there may be a feeling that they are building up to an unspecified obligation that may be onerous to discharge.

    In some ways, they pose a looming threat to our future.

  15. The reason they threw the gay guy off of Big Brother wasn’t that he was a nice guy, it was that he was a strong competitor that had to be taken out.

    Plus, he messed with the Brigade.

  16. A few words to describe my initial reaction to this study: counterintuitive, puzzling, troubling.

    I like how the study’s authors caution that the participants’ stated motivations might not be their real motivations; they might just be rationalizations.

    I will say the anonymous commenter @12 gives as good an explanation as any:

    When someone is not only contributing out of proportion, but staving off attempts to square the account, there may be a feeling that they are building up to an unspecified obligation that may be onerous to discharge.

    In some ways, they pose a looming threat to our future.

    I’d also give a mundane “identity politics” explanation. You’re more apt to exclude from your group people you don’t understand or identify with.

  17. @7: That’s why, though I won’t try to mooch off of others, I never turn down a drink offered to me. As my zaydeh (may he rest in peace) used to say: “When somebody offers you money, take it.”

  18. Old news. The Replacements: The ones who love us best are the ones we’ll lay to rest. The ones who love us least are the ones we’ll die to please.

  19. @17,

    It can be considered rude to refuse help from others, like you’re too good for it or something. I don’t know if that impression factored into this specific study though.

    @7,

    I wish I had your roommate. I always had the opposite, those assholes who will mooch off of you constantly and say “you can have anything of mine” and meanwhile they never bought any food/drinks of their own.

  20. I figure it’s a self image thing.
    We dislike those we secretly feel are “better than us”, and we tolerate arseholes because we secretly feel “better than them”.

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