Does generosity lead to happiness? Let's explore that topic. Let's look at the types of ways generosity may lead to feeling good. First, generosity could mean multiple things as we have seen, like helping people, donating money, volunteering time. And what are the results of these generous behaviors? We've also talked about some of the results along the way, and one was warm glow and feeling, having good feelings for the act you've done. Another reason you might feel good is because it could lead to a greater output of something you value. So if you value feeding the hungry than your donation to the food bank makes you happy because somebody's getting fed, or your time spent at the food bank makes you happy because you've been able to pack somebody's box, that is going to help feed them. It could also enhance, not just feeling good about the outcome of that act, but also the actual act itself. And that act itself could improve your social standing amongst people who are watching you participate in a volunteering activity. It could be your family, who knows what you've donated to. It could be your friends who asked you to help out and you've helped out. So it can also improve your social standing. Yeah, does doing good really lead to feeling good? And the question is, is it in the act itself, or is it in the outcome? Now, some people will say I really value the outcome, other people will say I really value the act. But the truth be spoken, and if you think deeply about this, I think you value both, you like doing the good thing, and you like the good that you're doing. So the feel good comes from the act of doing good and the outcome of doing good, okay? So if it is the outcome alone, let's say you are only interested in the outcome and you were really pure altruist and you said no, I don't care if my friends see me or not. I give anonymously, I do things that I really don't care. That if you only value the outcome, would you vote yes to attacks that would provide that outcome rather than you doing it. So it's not a voluntary act that government taxes you for it, and then provides those services that you're supporting. And if you are one of those who really are the pre your answers, you vote yes for the tax, right? Because you only care about the outcome. Some people, those who would vote no for the tax might do so, because they actually value the act of doing it. They want the agency in providing that, they want to feel good that comes from doing the act, not only from what outcome of the actors because we all care for the outcome. Because the truth is, you could volunteer at many organizations, or you can donate to many organizations. So why do you give to an organization that cares for the blind, and not for the poor or for the poor and not your sports club. It could be your choices that, I think people actually also probably the outcome. The problem with asking that question is that you hear the answers, but you don't actually what's going on in people's brains. Actually, sometimes, I don't even know why do things myself. Think about it in this way, the reason we have this involuntary giving this idea of why your tax is that people do care for it, but some people are willing to pay for it. And some people say, well, if you pay for it and that service's provided, I'm just as happy if I didn't pay for it, right? So if there's altruistic concern provides a motive to give, there's also an incentive to keep that money for yourself, because money is a good that you worked hard for, right? Because the cost of the charity or charitable giving, is really paid by the giver, the one who donates. But the benefits I spread over all those people who care about the needed or literacy or whatever it is. So it's only few people were largely an interesting give voluntary others would not. So if the government puts down roads or does cleaned up the air or I benefit from it, even if I don't pay for it. And so taxation is a normal solution to this free rider problem, because I could free right on your efforts, but it's not fair. So this is why we have taxation. Charity is the voluntary part. I also want to provide a public good that you'll benefit from it, but I want to pay for it, and you might not pay for it, right? So there's a difference between the outcome may be the same, but who pays, who benefits, who's got the cost, and so on. If the motive is to feel good, then you would only derive satisfaction from the act of giving. And that could be for various reasons your social standing, maybe you did your religious duty, maybe that was a ticket to heaven. I don't know for a lot of reasons. So to feel good would only come through a voluntary gift, not if the government made me pay for it, but I chose to give it, right? So for those who are doing it to feel good, taxation should not provide a one go, right? Because paying taxes does not involve the app. Somebody just took it out of my paycheck anyway, right? So why doesn't the government just take away? You're act of generosity and just give taxes because people hate paying taxes, right, and do you like paying taxes? No, we all don't like paying taxes, but yet you like the outcome of what taxes provides. But I'd rather you paid the taxes than me, because we don't get the warm glow. We're not pure hearted, we wanted to charity, and probably I spent thousands of dollars in charity. But if those same thousands of dollars were taken by the government, I would not be so happy, right? Now, neural evidence, if you could look in your brain, then this might clarify the relative importance of how much I value the good, whereas how much I value the act of giving, but I don't even know it if you ask me. But if somebody can look into my brain and see what's going on, we can figure this out, and it could have important consequences, not just for my giving, but for policy. Because the government realizes that people are getting a huge paying for actually doing the act, then they might incentivize you're giving, and that's what we actually do. At least in the US, we give a lot of tax benefits to people who engage in voluntary giving. It's a voluntary taxation because it's usually for a public good. Okay, so let's get to the neural evidence, so how about who is an economist who I knew briefly did some fantastic work in this area, and he has what is the relative importance of pure altruism and warm glow motives for charitable giving. What is happening in the brain, he says when you're involved in voluntary giving versus non voluntary giving. So he uses magnetic resonance imaging while subjects played what is called a dictator game. So the subjects received $100, and then they had to make decisions about whether to give the money to a local food bank. They also observed mandatory tax trenches of the money they got going directly to the food bank, and then they wanted to see what was happening in the brain. They were asked to give money to the food bank. They were giving money to the food bank, but they also transfers, that would like tax like transfers. What they found is that there is some self reported satisfaction in both cases, both the voluntary and the mandatory conditions, what's going on in the brain. So the experiment allowed them to look at the brain and see which parts of the brain were being active. And they know that some parts of the brains, the very complicated scientific names for these parts of the brain that light up when you are getting a reward. Same like if you're giving money, anything that gives you pleasure, those parts of the brain light up. And they're looking at those parts of the brain to see when you're giving charitable donations, whether the food bank is getting money, etc. So their findings provide the first evidence that mandatory taxation for a good cause like a food bank produce the same activation in specific brain areas, that have been tied to concrete individualistic rewards. So that part of the brain lights up, even though it's involuntary taxation, but it also lights up when you make a charitable donation. And they vary the amount of money the subject received and the money the charity received, and the brain lights up. So hey, we feel good when something good is happening, almost with it's mandatory or voluntary. Okay, when they did further analysis of the data, they saw that those subjects that had larger activation in the brain areas were more likely to give money to charity. And those that had larger activation when they were given money for themselves were less likely to give to charity. So I really was very happy, and my brain showed that when the food bank got donations or taxes or whatever, whenever the food banks outcome increase, the more happy I was with the public good, the more I ended up giving voluntarily. So how then is the voluntary giving different from tax like transfers? They found that reported satisfactions were about 10% higher for voluntary transfers and mandatory transfers. And the neural evidence shows a similar results, higher activation in case of voluntary transfers. So clearly we're feeling good when we're actually voluntarily doing good. So these results are really important for understanding why people give money to charitable organizations, whether you get money for yourself, whether you give money to a charity, and whether this warm glow is for other. Voluntary giving or involuntary transfer, they all activate the same areas of our brain and they clearly, when you have agency in choosing where you give, you going to feel good.
