Hidden Brain - Episode 14: Christmas

Episode Date: December 22, 2015

This is the time of year for giving--whether that's a holiday gift for someone we love, or a charitable donation to a good cause. But why do we give? And how can we do it better? This week on Hidden Brain: how to be more generous, get your friends and family what they actually want, and why it's okay to regift.

This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedanta. The holiday season is a time of giving to our friends and loved ones, but also the strangers in the form of donations or charity. On this week's episode, we'll explore the psychology of giving. We'll look at what motivates us to give to charities. Once they see that there's a solicitor at the door, they say, oh my god, I wish I would have stayed on the couch watching the football game. Why it's okay to be a regifter and why sometimes, lying to small children can be a gift.

Fair point, but I just think you've totally lost our 8 and under-demo-grabber. Finally, well-known philanthropist Adam Cole is back, he's going to give us the gift of music and tie the episode together with a song. Inspired by those really cheesy Christmas specials in which children dance around in brightly colored sweaters. Lots of fast-make charitable donations over the holiday season, maybe you write a few checks, maybe you donate online, or maybe you get asked directly at a shopping mall or the grocery store. But what motivates you to give and is a change with the situation?

One of our producers Maggie Pennman and our news assistant Max Nestrak went to investigate. So Max and I went to the Giant in Silver Spring, Maryland. It's a big suburban grocery store, very busy on a Saturday afternoon, but we came not to shop, but for another reason. Right, we waited in front of the Salvation Army collection. We met a nice woman there named Lisa Ingram with a Santa hat on that said naughty. to shop, but for another reason. Right, we waited in front of the Salvation Army collection. We met a nice woman there named Lisa Ingram with a Santa hat on that said naughty. She was ringing her bell and people were dropping in their loose change, a few dollar bills.

I saw someone put a tent in. We really wanted to know why. And the first person we talked to was Charles J. Barber Jr. He seemed like a really popular guy, even in our very short interview, he kept getting interrupted by his friends walking by. But hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, how you doing? But he said for him it's about being able to empathize with people who are in need. Some of us are just stones throw away from, you know, being, you know, in a bad place

too, so hopefully this helps people who need it. Next, there was Jarell Bactin. I mean, it was actually a change that Iin. I mean, it was extra change that I had. I mean, every little bit counts. And I mean, I mean, every penny counts, whatever you can do, is just be able to reach out and help. Stella Lore was at the store with a friend. She bought me some tea that cost almost $4 or so.

I said, well, I'd just say $4. Pay it forward. Exactly. So I'm just going to pay it forward. Next, we talked to Lee Sheniger. Well, I just give in general, and he had a loose change, so believe that. Does it make you feel good when you give? Oh, I suppose so.

And finally, we talked to Bonnie Scott. So, why did you put a dollar in the bucket? Well, I like to see people being helped. So why not give them a dollar when I see them? Do you give every time you see the Salvation Army bucket? Yes, I'm guilty. And why do you think you always have to, like, every time you go to a store around this time of year,

why do you feel like you have to give a dollar? People need right now. So why not? So there you have it, Chunker. People give because they want to help. Because it makes them feel good. And because they want to pay it forward. That was Maggie Pennman and Max Nestrak,

with a lot of very sweet people at the grocery store, showing us the positive side of generosity. But there's also a more cynical take. And that was summarized in a recent episode of South Park where Stan's dad, Randy Marsh, gets pressured to donate a dollar at the checkout line at a very socially conscious Whole Foods. Okay, Sarah, looks like your total is 37.83. Alright, okay, and would you like to add a dollar donation to help hungry kids around

the world? Oh, uh, no, that's okay. Sorry? I'm good. I'm sorry, you don't want to give the dollar to hungry kids? Not today, thank you. Okay, no problem. Windows gonna come up and ask if you're helping the hungry kids just hit no I'm not.

Oh come on. Try hitting it again. It's the box below the one that says sure I'd love to help however I can. Ah darn thing, sorry. Most people give the dollar. I can do this manually. Look, I give money to charity a lot, okay? Oh, sure you do. I do. I just don't want to every time I shop for food.

That's completely understandable. Have customers speak, I'm at- Oh, okay. If you can just speak into the voice to Coder and say, I'm not giving anything to the hungry kids. I'm not giving anything to the hungry kids. So which version of generosity is right? The positive, life-affirming people that Maggie and Max talked with? Or the guilt-trip philanthropist at the checkout line?

I recently had a conversation about this with all things considered host Audi Cornish. We talked about why the reasons you think you give may not actually be the real reason. So this is the time of years I say when people are perceived as being more charitable, but is it all altruistic? Well when you ask people why they are generous, they will tell you that it is all about altruism, that they love a cause or they like to give. But scientists have increasingly sought to test these claims, Adi. I spoke with the economist John List, he's at the University of Chicago.

He's conducted a number of experiments into why people give, and he explained to me why he thinks this is important to do. Anytime you ask someone, why did you give to this charitable cause, the typical response is, I gave because I really want to help another person. But when you actually dig down deeper, that's not the true motive for why they gave, and that's exactly why we need field experiments to try to disentangle reasons why people give. And I understand, Tucker, one of the reasons may be social pressure, right? And he does some experiments to try and make that case. That's right. So, this thinks that social pressure might be playing a very powerful role.

And he asks me to think about a scenario that's going to be familiar to lots of us. Here he is again. You're sitting on the couch watching a football game. And you hear somebody knocking on the door. And you think, okay, should I get up or should I stay watching the football game? Of course, a lot of people get up and answer the door. But once they see that there's a solicitor at the door,

they say, oh my God, I wish I would have stayed on the couch watching the football game. Right, so basically you feel like you've been put on the spot. Exactly, and Lists realized that this scenario provides the perfect mechanism for an experiment that tries to find out how much social pressure plays a role in altruism. Lists sent volunteers into various Chicago neighborhoods to solicit money for a children's hospital, but there was a catch-oddie. Some households just got a cold call, a knock on the door.

Others were alerted ahead of time that someone was going to be knocking on their door and asking for money. A third group was told that the knock was coming and given the choice to opt out, they could say they didn't want to be disturbed. Now if people were giving only because of altruism, it shouldn't matter whether they know ahead of time that a knock is coming, but list finds that when households are alerted ahead of time, the number of people who answer that knock on the door, it falls by a quarter. When people are given the choice to opt out and say they don't want to be disturbed,

donations fall by nearly half. And what list says to shows is how much social pressure shapes generosity. What you find is that roughly three quarters of the dollars given are due to social pressure and a quarter of the dollars given is actually due to altruism now of course already we should mention that this was one experiment and one setting

the lots of other reasons why people might want to give people write checks in the privacy of their own homes where there's no social pressure but in this kind of situation and there many like it you know you you encounter somebody at the door of uh... store as you're leaving or maybe you're at church and people are passing the collection play, it's situations like that where social pressure probably plays an enormous role. So the idea that you're basically uncomfortable saying no to someone's face, right? Exactly, so in this experiment you don't want the person at the door to think that you're

a jerk for not wanting to help a children's hospital. The dilemma already is that for charities, putting people on the spot is effective, but it might be effective only in the short term because people don't like to be pressured and they're going to find ways to dodge it. List in fact believes that charities need to focus on the 25% of people who are genuinely motivated by altruism because this is the group of people who are likely to be your long-term supporters. So what are some of the other strategies that charities and others have found to get us to open our wallets?

You know, are there literally dozens of different things that people have tried? One of them is that when a charity sends you a gift, maybe they send you a calendar, the norm of reciprocity dictates that you send something back to them in exchange. Another idea is that if you can get people to donate their time to a cause, they're more likely to follow up with donations because people's wallets follow their feet. So I'm feeling a little guilty now for my introduction, right? The norms of the holiday season, right? This is the time of year to give. Does that also create a form of social pressure? You can think about social norms exactly as a larger example of social pressure at work.

If you're at a workplace and everyone's writing checks to charities or doing things that are charitable, you feel kind of obliged to do the same. Shankar, thanks so much for explaining it. Thank you so much, Arty. After the short break, Dan Pink is back for another round of stop-what science. We'll give you some tips on how to be more generous and give better gifts. We'll also tell you about the downside of altruism. After this. Welcome back. We have more ideas about charity and gift giving in our next stopwatch science segment.

I'm joined as usual by Senior Stopwatch science correspondent Daniel Pink. Hi, Dan. Hey, Shankar. As we've heard in the previous segment, altruism is a complicated thing. It makes people feel warm and happy, but it's also driven by social pressure and public norms. On this edition of Stop-watch Science, Dan and I will present two ideas each from social science research looking at the science of generosity.

We get 60 seconds to present each idea, and as we approach the 60 second mark, our producers will gently bring up the music like they do at the Oscars. Dan, if you're ready, your first 60 seconds starts now. Okay, let's say you're choosing a holiday gift for a friend, and you're deciding between two video games. Now, one game is high-end and super cool, but it takes a while to learn. The other is more ordinary, it's easy to start playing, but the game is just medium quality

and less nifty. Which gift would you rather give, and which would your friend rather receive? Now those questions are at the heart of a fascinating paper last year in the Journal of Consumer Research. Over eight experiments, researchers found that givers consistently chose desirability, special gifts, even if they're a hassle. Like that turbocharged video game

or a gift certificate to a great Italian restaurant that's an hour away. But receivers consistently valued feasibility just as much. They were equally happy with that easy to play video game, or a gift card to an okay Italian restaurant around the corner. When we sell a gift for people, we often aim for desirability. We want to pick something special, unique, unforgettable. But it turns out that the people on the receiving end, they don't much care.

They're just as happy with gifts that are easy, convenient, and practical. I love that, Dad, and I think this speaks to something that you've brought up before on Stopwatch Science, which is that we are often really bad at reading other people's minds. We're terrible at it, and we don't know it. So there are some workarounds that we can do. For instance, Francesca Gino, who is a friend of the show, has a great paper from a few years ago, showing that the best way to select a gift for someone is to ask them what they want rather than try to divine it

through telepathy. All right, I get the message, Dan. What do you want for Christmas? Oh, let's see. Well, actually, my coffee maker broke, so I really just, I actually need a coffee maker pretty badly, and not a fancy one with special little valves and things that steam and word things around, just a regular working man's coffee maker.

All right, consider that done. All right, Shankar, your 60 seconds starts right now. Many of us think that learning a musical instrument or becoming a gymnast are skills that can be learned or improved with practice. But we don't think of generosity and altruism the same way. We don't think of compassion as a skill when in fact there's evidence that you can train yourself to be more compassionate. Helen Wang and Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, along with other researchers, they trained volunteers to think kindly about others, to cultivate compassion

both for loved ones as well as for strangers. They find in a study published in the Journal of Psychological Science that when you do this for 30 minutes a day for two weeks, volunteers become more likely to act compassionately towards strangers who are in need of help. In other words, mental training alone can change your ability to respond to the suffering of others. They also find very interestingly, there's evidence using FMRI scanners that there are changes in the brain areas of volunteers who get the training, and these brain areas include

the inferior parietal cortex and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. It's fascinating and heartening. Martin Seligman years ago wrote a book called Learned Optimism based on his research and learn helplessness. What we're talking here is learn compassion, which would be no joke, a really great gift in the holidays. I think that's right. It's part of a larger body of work known as positive psychology, looking at how

psychology can help us understand the best of ourselves, not just the worst of ourselves, but then I'm going to turn it over to you for your second study. Your next 60 seconds starts right now. Okay, here's a less exalted scenario, right? Someone gives me a present, say a watch. I open it and think, yeah, it's not my style. So I stick it in a new box, re-wrap it, and give it to my brother.

It's called re-gifting. And it's offensive, right? A social taboo. Well, a set of studies by Gabrielle Adams at the London Business School says, maybe not. Adams and colleagues at Harvard and Stanford set up several experiments in which some people were gift-givers and others were gift-receivers. Then they had some of the receivers repackage their gifts and give them to someone else.

Turns out, over and over again, the regifters overestimated how much the givers of the original gift would be offended. They thought the givers would be shocked, hurt, appalled by the regifting, but most givers said, hey, it's your gift now. The title is essentially passed to you. Do whatever you want. The stigma of regifting wasn't much of a stigma at all. Dan, I want to thank you for sanctioning my inner regifter.

I feel completely liberated now in ways that should be very interesting to watch over the next few weeks. Oh, that's great, because I got a really special Present for you. Hi, high in desire ability, but really difficult to you So you just give it to somebody else and you'll feel better. All right now you're 60 seconds for your study Shankar starts Right now all right. This is also a study that looks at altruism except Dan It looks at the downside of altruism

It's a study by friend of the show, Francesca Gino at the Harvard Business School, you just mentioned her a moment ago. Along with Shaharayal and Dan Arieli, Gino found that people are more likely to cheat when their behavior is hidden. That's not surprising. Here's the part of her study that caught my eye. When people feel that their cheating

can help another person, as well as themselves, cheating goes up substantially. When being dishonest can help an entire group, cheating goes up even more. What's fascinating to me here at Dan is how the hidden brain weaves together these different motives. One thing to help others is a good thing. In this case, people use a positive motive to justify being dishonest. Now I know it's the holiday season, Dan, but I'm going to make a little editorial statement

here. One of the things that many of us do is we lie to children about the existence of Santa Claus. We perpetrate this act of mass dishonesty, but we do it because we say it's in the common good. Fair point, but I just think you've totally lost our eating under-demo-grabber. All right, there you have it. Give gifts that are useful, train yourself to be more compassionate, beware of the downside of altruism and re-gift shamelessly. If you get caught, tell people Dan Pink told you to do it. Dan, thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure, I think.

That was Daniel Pink, our senior stopwatch science correspondent and Ace Giftgever. Can't wait to see what you got me for Christmas, Dad. We have one last segment for you this holiday. Adam Colors back to tie this episode together with a song. Adam, welcome back to Hidden Brain. Thanks so much for having me. Did you put in hours and hours of work to create this original song for us, Adam? Well, I put in a lot of hours listening to the episode and I put in a lot of hours listening

to holiday music to get inspiration since this is a holiday episode. So yeah, put together a little piece sort of inspired by those really cheesy Christmas specials in which children dance around in brightly colored sweaters. Wonderful. And did you do this all by yourself yourself Adam? What did you have help? Well, you know, I actually got some help from your producer Maggie Penman. She sings on this song. Oh cool. And there's also a special guest appearance by someone you said doesn't exist.

I can't wait to hear this. The chestnuts are roasting and shunker stopped hosting so he could go out and sled. And Shanker stopped hosting, so he could go out and sled. There's jingle bells belling, and our hearts are swelling, And Dan pink is yelling about something he read. We're full of Christmas cheer, but let's make one thing very clear. It gives you give her thoughtful. But they're also often awful. Just give us what we asked for this year.

No, it's not so machine, they're hard to clean. No vibes are dinner in for me. But we'll take your coffee maker and a piece of pizza down the street. If we open a gift and we don't like what we find, we'll just re-gift it. You won't mind, but it would be terrific if you gave us the specific things that we asked for in this Christmas time. No hold on a minute. Santa Claus? Yes it's me and I'm here to tell you you're terrible. This isn't the season of receiving, it's the season of altruism.

Altruism? Sounds lame Santa. Yeah, what do you know? You're just an act of vastness honesty You perpetrate annually for the sake of children. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no Pole. I was a mean old elf, no! Just like the Grinch, my heart, it was pinched, and I only thought of myself. But then I practiced carrying, 30 minutes every day, and my torso lateral, prefrontal cortex slowly began to change.

I don't know Santa, practicing empathy sounds like a lot of work. No, for years, a lot of people don't practice compassion. They're only generous when they think people are watching. That's why I watch from my sleigh, both night and day. A jolly one man, NSA. So if someone for is at your door, I'll see if you turn them away. If you don't help people with their problems,

you'll make my list, and not the nice color. It's my duty and my pleasure to apply the social pressure So people will be selfless to squeeze Fast high Doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh doh do Merry Christmas, Mrs. Ders! No! Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho- That's right, I'm glad that you are a big, enough man to admit that. Adam, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. Hidden Brain is produced by Karamakar Kalasin and Maggie Penman, our new assistant is Max Nestra, special thanks this week to Daniel Pink and Adam Cole. For more Hidden Brain, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Our weekly newsletter gives you lots of valuable tips.

Send an email to hiddenbrainatnpr.org with the word subscribe in the subject line. I'm Shankar Vedantun and this is NPR. you