Washington: Scientists, including one of Indian-origin, have found that pure altruism increases with age, especially after 45 years.
People give to charity for numerous non-altruistic reasons, such as showing off their generosity to others. To isolate pure altruism from other motivations, researchers triangulated methods from the three fields. According to Ulrich Mayr from University of Oregon in the US, their goal was to find a sweet spot where altruism is done for the simple joy of seeing others benefit without expecting
personal rewards or recognition.
In an experiment with 80 men and women, ages 18-67, all with similar work and life experiences, the participants made real decisions about either giving cash to a charity or keeping it for themselves. This method was based on a basic principle of economic research "look at what people do, not what they say," said
William T Harbaugh from University of Oregon.
Researchers also used functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to look at brain regions associated with value and rewards as each subject watched various scenarios involving money going either to themselves or to charities.
Participants also took detailed psychological assessments of their personality traits. The results showed that for some people neural reward areas were more active when money went to themselves than to charities. This can be interpreted as a self-interested neural response, said Mayr.
Others showed more neural reward when they witnessed money going to a charity. These individuals, whose neural responses suggest altruistic tendencies, also gave more money when they had a choice. They also showed a stronger expression of pro-social personality traits. Researchers said the pattern points to a strong underlying dimension that they labelled as general benevolence, which reflects altruistic tendencies based on measures drawn from neuroscience, behavioural economics and psychology.
General benevolence is more strongly expressed in the second half of the life span, researchers found. People older than 45 receive more neural reward from
seeing others better off, they give more money away and they score higher on pro-social personality traits than those under 45. Religiosity also showed a moderate, positive relationship, but gender, political orientation and annual
income did not, researchers said.
Since general benevolence increases with age, it suggests the possibility that life experiences may plant the seeds of pure altruism in people, allowing them to grow into the desire to contribute to the public good, said Mayr. "The research gives us a deeper look at the people who give to charity and altruistically contribute to society," said Sanjay Srivastava from University of Oregon.
The findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
