Boosting Effective Giving and Reducing Political Animosity | Joshua D. Greene | EAGxBoston 22

Joshua Greene discusses two psychological research projects aimed at broadening the scope of human altruism and cooperation. The first (with Lucius Caviola) aims to expand the circle of effective giving. They show that ordinary donors are happy to give effectively, provided that it is part of a bundled donation including a personal favorite charity. They explain the appeal of bundled donations and show that economic incentives can boost their appeal. This research led them to create GivingMultiplier.org, which incentives bundled donations using a self-sustaining system of micro-matching. Since launching in late 2020, Giving Multiplier has raised over 1.6 million USD, mostly from donors who are new to effective giving. The second project (with Evan Defilippis) aims to reduce political animosity using a scalable online quiz game (“RedBrain BlueBrain”). Republicans and Democrats play as partners and succeed by reaching mutually rewarding compromises. Two large-scale, preregistered experiments showed that an hour of game play can produce warmer attitudes toward the political out-group, with effects lasting up to four months. These two projects address different problems, but they are grounded in the same empirically informed conception of human nature: people are reciprocal cooperators, driven by emotions that limit their scope of moral concern. However, people are capable of moral expansion through rationally structured opportunities and experiences. View the original talk and video here. Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet.