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What a misleading title. Apparently there are 4 motivators to benefit others. One: The recipient of a kindness is inclined to do something nice for the giver

What a misleading title. Apparently there are 4 motivators to benefit others. One: The recipient of a kindness is inclined to do something nice for the giver in return. Two: A person is motivated to do something nice to someone that she saw be generous to a third person. Three: A person is likely to do good in the presence of people in their network who might reward their generosity. Four: A person is likely to "pay it forward" to someone else if someone has done something nice for her. They did a online "study" where they mixed and matched the motivators to see how it affected people's "giving" ( points tied to money ). It's hard to tell from the article, but the assumption was that #1 would dominate people's motivation to give ( return the favor ), but the "study" showed that all 4 motivations and all the permutations still influenced the giving. So people do "right by each other" given these 4 motivators which ultimately is selfish because they all imply you have gotten something already or you hope to gain something by "doing right". > "From an evolutionary perspective, it's kind of perplexing that it even exists, because you're decreasing your own fitness on behalf of others," Melamed said. "And yet, we see it in bees and ants, and humans and throughout all of nature." I can't believe that a "scientist" would even say such nonsense. It isn't evolutionarily perplexing at all. We see it throughout all of nature because it doesn't decrease your fitness on behalf of others. Social networking and cooperation isn't evolutionarily perplexing.

gwd 6y ago
> Apparently there are 4 motivators to benefit others. The article says "Scientists previously had determined that four motivators influenced people to behave in a way that benefited other people." But that completely leaves out the fact that, you know, sometimes helping other people feels good. Why do people watch a sunset? Why do they listen to music? Why do people do exercises or read books, or have sex? The most basic reason for anything is that it gives people pleasure. Now, you can come up with some kind of evolutionary reason why those activities are pleasurable, but given that helping other people can be pleasurable, you don't need to come up with any deep psychological reason beyond that. And really, from a moral point of view, the purpose of social reward / shame mechanisms is to get you to to act in a caring way towards other people, so that you experience the pleasure of doing so, and then start doing it for its own sake. The best sort of person, after all, isn't the person who helps someone else for social status, or because they're afraid of retribution, or looking for a payback later. The best sort of person is the person who genuinely enjoys seeing someone else happy.
- dntbnmpls 6y ago
  > The article says "Scientists previously had determined that four motivators influenced people to behave in a way that benefited other people." I know. That's why I listed the 4 that was mentioned in the article. The rest of your comment has nothing to do with my comment or the article so I'll just ignore it. Pleasure, morality and best person are really philosophical questions better left to another thread.

gwd 6y ago

> Apparently there are 4 motivators to benefit others. The article says "Scientists previously had determined that four motivators influenced people to behave in a way that benefited other people." But that completely leaves out the fact that, you know, sometimes helping other people feels good. Why do people watch a sunset? Why do they listen to music? Why do people do exercises or read books, or have sex? The most basic reason for anything is that it gives people pleasure. Now, you can come up with some kind of evolutionary reason why those activities are pleasurable, but given that helping other people can be pleasurable, you don't need to come up with any deep psychological reason beyond that. And really, from a moral point of view, the purpose of social reward / shame mechanisms is to get you to to act in a caring way towards other people, so that you experience the pleasure of doing so, and then start doing it for its own sake. The best sort of person, after all, isn't the person who helps someone else for social status, or because they're afraid of retribution, or looking for a payback later. The best sort of person is the person who genuinely enjoys seeing someone else happy.

dntbnmpls 6y ago
> The article says "Scientists previously had determined that four motivators influenced people to behave in a way that benefited other people." I know. That's why I listed the 4 that was mentioned in the article. The rest of your comment has nothing to do with my comment or the article so I'll just ignore it. Pleasure, morality and best person are really philosophical questions better left to another thread.