Välgörenhet, rykte och könsskillnader

Tanken att det är rykteseffekter som förklarar välgörenhet och skenbart altruistiskt beteende börjar ta skruv nu. The Economist skriver här om Geoffrey Millers forskning:

At first sight, helping charities looks to be at the opposite end ofthe selfishness spectrum from conspicuous consumption. Yet they havesomething in common: both involve the profligate deployment ofresources. That is characteristic of the consequences of sexual selection. An individual shows he (or she) has resources to burn—whether those arebiochemical reserves, time or, in the human instance, money—by usingthem to make costly signals.

Forskningen bygger på hypotetiska fall i enkäter, och resultaten beskrivs så här:

As predicted, romantically primed men wanted to buy items that theycould wear or drive, rather than things to be kept at home. Theirmotive, therefore, was not mere acquisitiveness. Similarly,romantically primed women volunteered for activities such as working ina shelter for the homeless, rather than spending an afternoon alonepicking up rubbish in a park. For both sexes, however, those in anunromantic mood were indifferent to the public visibility of theirchoices.

Romantic/unromantic mood har inducerats med bilder. Lagom spektakulärt och helt värdigt författaren till The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature.

Millers forskningsartikel, från Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.