Generosity Pays: Selfless People Tend to Make More Money

Raggamuffin wrote:I think that's a highly dubious correlation. It might be that people who are more generous are generally more outgoing so they might get jobs which more reserved people wouldn't go for, or wouldn't get.

Thor wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:I think that's a highly dubious correlation. It might be that people who are more generous are generally more outgoing so they might get jobs which more reserved people wouldn't go for, or wouldn't get.

Saying something is dubious is basically meaningless, without any statistical evidence to show otherwise Rags

This was two seperate Universities that conducted this and came to the same findings

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thor wrote:

Saying something is dubious is basically meaningless, without any statistical evidence to show otherwise Rags

This was two seperate Universities that conducted this and came to the same findings

I don't need to have statistical evidence. It's not their statistics I'm querying, it's the conclusion they drew from them.

Thor wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

I don't need to have statistical evidence. It's not their statistics I'm querying, it's the conclusion they drew from them.

Where there conclusions are drawm from evidence

Hence you saying you disagree is again meaningless unless you can prove otherwise

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thor wrote:

Where there conclusions are drawm from evidence

Hence you saying you disagree is again meaningless unless you can prove otherwise

I said that the correlation is highly dubious.

You could find a correlation anywhere, but that doesn't mean it's cause and effect.

Thor wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

I said that the correlation is highly dubious.

You could find a correlation anywhere, but that doesn't mean it's cause and effect.

Yes you keep making a claim, not based on any evidence or reasoning

So whoopdedoo

I am sure they will not give your views even a passing thought

Raggamuffin wrote:What exactly was the point of the study anyway?

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thor wrote:

Yes you keep making a claim, not based on any evidence or reasoning

So whoopdedoo

I am sure they will not give your views even a passing thought

Are you saying that if I behave more "unselfishly" or generously, I will suddenly get a pay rise?

Don't be such a duffer.

Didge wrote:Saying something is dubious is basically meaningless, without any statistical evidence to show otherwise Rags

Original Quill wrote:

Didge wrote:Saying something is dubious is basically meaningless, without any statistical evidence to show otherwise Rags

Nonsense.  Saying something is dubious is simply the postulate of skepticism.  One does not need evidence to affirm a nullity.

One only needs evidence for a positive claim.

Thor wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Nonsense.  Saying something is dubious is simply the postulate of skepticism.  One does not need evidence to affirm a nullity.

One only needs evidence for a positive claim.

How absurd

Considering she has not even looked at the study, how then can someone claim its dubious?

In other words, is you talking nonsense

Original Quill wrote:

Thor wrote:

How absurd

Considering she has not even looked at the study, how then can someone claim its dubious?

In other words, is you talking nonsense

So then, just to be certain, you've decided to concede the point and move to make this all about Raggs?

In the inimitable words of tommy...I have no argument, I'm a moron..

Didge wrote:We see people be dubious of scientific study all the time and do so, from never ever reading the studies themselves

Original Quill wrote:

Didge wrote:We see people be dubious of scientific study all the time and do so, from never ever reading the studies themselves

Raggs is simply arguing from the spirit of skepticism.  It's your responsibility to argue the affirmative.  It's not your responsibility to criticize your interlocutor.

Stick to the subject, or give it up.

Thor wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Raggs is simply arguing from the spirit of skepticism.  It's your responsibility to argue the affirmative.  It's not your responsibility to criticize your interlocutor.

Stick to the subject, or give it up.

And I asked her to give me reasons, based on the information of the study

She failed to do so

She simple read an article on this and decided it was dubious, never looking at the data

To me, that is absurd

As to sticking to the subject, maybe you could avtually talk about the subject instead atcing like a toddler shit stirring

Good luck

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thor wrote:


And I asked her to give me reasons, based on the information of the study

She failed to do so

She simple read an article on this and decided it was dubious, never looking at the data

To me, that is absurd

As to sticking to the subject, maybe you could avtually talk about the subject instead atcing like a toddler shit stirring

Good luck

I did give you reasons, you just didn't like them, so you decided to be obnoxious as usual.

Didge wrote:And I asked her to give me reasons, based on the information of the study

She failed to do so

She simple read an article on this and decided it was dubious, never looking at the data

Didge wrote:As to sticking to the subject, maybe you could avtually talk about the subject instead atcing like a toddler shit stirring

Thor wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:





I did give you reasons, you just didn't like them, so you decided to be obnoxious as usual.

Well considering they looked at people over a lengh of time, it shows you did not look at the evidence

I am not being obnoxious and made no views on you and its you doing that yourself, looking again to start a fight

“The result is clear in both the American and the European data. The most unselfish people have the most children and the moderately unselfish receive the highest salaries. And we also find this result over time – the people who are most generous at one point in time have the largest salary increases when researchers revisit them later in time,” says Kimmo Eriksson, researcher at the Centre for Cultural Evolution at Stockholm University and one of the authors of the study.

The result is contrary to theories that selfish people manage to get their hands on more money through their selfishness, as suggested in previous research.

Previous psychological and sociological research has shown that unselfish people are happier and have better social relationships. The study “Generosity pays: Selfish people have fewer children and earn less money” focuses on unselfishness from an economical and evolutionary perspective.

In this collaboration with the Institute for Futures Studies and the University of South Carolina, researchers at Stockholm University have looked at how selfishness relates to income and fertility. Selfishness was measured partly through attitudes and partly through reported behaviors.* The results are based on analyses of four major studies of Americans and Europeans.


“In a separate study, we examined the expectations of ordinary people to see if their expectations aligned with our data. The results of this study showed that people generally have the correct expectation that selfish people have fewer children, but erroneously believe that selfish people will make more money. It is nice to see that generosity so often pays off in the long run,” says Pontus Strimling, a researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies, who is also one of the authors behind the study.

The authors themselves believe that improved social relationships may be the key to generous peoples’ success from an economic perspective, but note that their research does not definitely answer this question.

“Future research will have to delve deeper into the reasons why generous people earn more, and look at whether the link between unselfishness, higher salaries and more children also exists in other parts of the world. And it is of course debatable how unselfish it really is to have more children,” says co-author Brent Simpson of University of South Carolina.

*Unselfishness is defined in the study as the desire to help others because you care about their welfare. Therefore, attitudes concern how important a person thinks it is to help others and care about their welfare. The behaviors concerned how often and how much the person engaged in various help behaviours, e.g. giving money or their time to help others.

Thor wrote:So as Quill is intent on not actually debating the points and simple looking to cause trouble I will simple post up more information on the study. In the hope others will look to reason why they think the findings either make sense or are flawed.

“The result is clear in both the American and the European data. The most unselfish people have the most children and the moderately unselfish receive the highest salaries. And we also find this result over time – the people who are most generous at one point in time have the largest salary increases when researchers revisit them later in time,” says Kimmo Eriksson, researcher at the Centre for Cultural Evolution at Stockholm University and one of the authors of the study.

The result is contrary to theories that selfish people manage to get their hands on more money through their selfishness, as suggested in previous research.

Previous psychological and sociological research has shown that unselfish people are happier and have better social relationships. The study “Generosity pays: Selfish people have fewer children and earn less money” focuses on unselfishness from an economical and evolutionary perspective.

In this collaboration with the Institute for Futures Studies and the University of South Carolina, researchers at Stockholm University have looked at how selfishness relates to income and fertility. Selfishness was measured partly through attitudes and partly through reported behaviors.* The results are based on analyses of four major studies of Americans and Europeans.


“In a separate study, we examined the expectations of ordinary people to see if their expectations aligned with our data. The results of this study showed that people generally have the correct expectation that selfish people have fewer children, but erroneously believe that selfish people will make more money. It is nice to see that generosity so often pays off in the long run,” says Pontus Strimling, a researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies, who is also one of the authors behind the study.

The authors themselves believe that improved social relationships may be the key to generous peoples’ success from an economic perspective, but note that their research does not definitely answer this question.

“Future research will have to delve deeper into the reasons why generous people earn more, and look at whether the link between unselfishness, higher salaries and more children also exists in other parts of the world. And it is of course debatable how unselfish it really is to have more children,” says co-author Brent Simpson of University of South Carolina.

*Unselfishness is defined in the study as the desire to help others because you care about their welfare. Therefore, attitudes concern how important a person thinks it is to help others and care about their welfare. The behaviors concerned how often and how much the person engaged in various help behaviours, e.g. giving money or their time to help others.

http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fpspp0000213

Didge wrote:So as Quill is intent on not actually debating the points and simple looking to cause trouble I will simple post up more information on the study. In the hope others will look to reason why they think the findings either make sense or are flawed.

Original Quill wrote:

Didge wrote:So as Quill is intent on not actually debating the points and simple looking to cause trouble I will simple post up more information on the study. In the hope others will look to reason why they think the findings either make sense or are flawed.

That's what you should have done in the first place.

Now on to the subject:

There is a hidden contradiction in that the thesis seems to be that generous people accumulation the most wealth...which distills down to: generous people are the most selfish.

Wealth, itself, is an indicator of selfishness.  If you don't believe it, try giving your wealth away.  Your own instinct will be to hoard and covet your wealth.  That, by definition, is selfishness.

Original Quill wrote:

Didge wrote:So as Quill is intent on not actually debating the points and simple looking to cause trouble I will simple post up more information on the study. In the hope others will look to reason why they think the findings either make sense or are flawed.

That's what you should have done in the first place.

Now on to the subject:

There is a hidden contradiction in that the thesis seems to be that generous people accumulation the most wealth...which distills down to: generous people are the most selfish.

Wealth, itself, is an indicator of selfishness.  If you don't believe it, try giving your wealth away.  Your own instinct will be to hoard and covet your wealth.  That, by definition, is selfishness.

Thor wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

That's what you should have done in the first place.

Now on to the subject:

There is a hidden contradiction in that the thesis seems to be that generous people accumulation the most wealth...which distills down to: generous people are the most selfish.

Wealth, itself, is an indicator of selfishness.  If you don't believe it, try giving your wealth away.  Your own instinct will be to hoard and covet your wealth.  That, by definition, is selfishness.

1) That is not what article in claims, that they have accumilated the most wealth

Show me where it states that?

2) Your next view that wealth is an indicator selfishness, is blatantly absurd, when again these people are most unselfish, in the way they give money to charity. Hence your claim is basically groundless and is even more subjective to say the least

Watch the video to learn more

What they have found is a correlation between those most unselfish and basically more wealth over time and also having more children

This is replicated not only in the US but Europe. The next step is to see whether this correlates even more across the world

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thor wrote:

1) That is not what article in claims, that they have accumilated the most wealth

Show me where it states that?

2) Your next view that wealth is an indicator selfishness, is blatantly absurd, when again these people are most unselfish, in the way they give money to charity. Hence your claim is basically groundless and is even more subjective to say the least

Watch the video to learn more

What they have found is a correlation between those most unselfish and basically more wealth over time and also having more children

This is replicated not only in the US but Europe. The next step is to see whether this correlates even more across the world

Wealthy people can afford to give more to charity though. There might be a correlation between how well off someone is and how much they give to charity, but that's common sense.

Thor wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Wealthy people can afford to give more to charity though. There might be a correlation between how well off someone is and how much they give to charity, but that's common sense.

But it depends on how much more they are giving. Hence your view is a generalistic view, not again looking into how much they do give

Even more they tend to have more children

In fact this makes plenty of sense to me

Its challenging poor myths around how well people do and whether they are selfish

All the indicators show here, is a clear indication of unseflish behaviour and this was found in 4 studies

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thor wrote:

But it depends on how much more they are giving. Hence your view is a generalistic view, not again looking into how much they do give

Even more they tend to have more children

In fact this makes plenty of sense to me

Its challenging poor myths around how well people do and whether they are selfish

All the indicators show here, is a clear indication of unseflish behaviour and this was found in 4 studies

Wealthy people can afford to have more children though.

Thor wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Wealthy people can afford to have more children though.

You are still looking at this wrong and taking the view they must all be super rich

People have to also have loving families, which also takes spending time with them

A view where people constantly give to others in need, is an unseflsih trait

What you could have argued as a flaw, is where it is unselfish to have more children

That would play a different factor based on global populations

What you fail to grasp is there is a correlation here, with a pool study of 60,000 people

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thor wrote:

You are still looking at this wrong and taking the view they must all be super rich

People have to also have loving families, which also takes spending time with them

A view where people constantly give to others in need, is an unseflsih trait

What you could have argued as a flaw, is where it is unselfish to have more children

That would play a different factor based on global populations

What you fail to grasp is there is a correlation here, with a pool study of 60,000 people

I'm not disputing a correlation, I'm disputing the validity of that correlation - ie, re cause and effect.

Why is it unselfish to have more children anyway?

What you fail to grasp is that you have just accepted what they said without even reading the whole study, and knowing how they gathered data, how they interviewed people, what they asked them, and then how they decided that there was a causal relationship.

Raggamuffin wrote:What has to be proved is that selfless people make more money because they are selfless. Then it has to be shown what kind of jobs they have, and if they make more money than someone else in the same job because they're selfless.

Thor wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

I'm not disputing a correlation, I'm disputing the validity of that correlation - ie, re cause and effect.

Why is it unselfish to have more children anyway?

What you fail to grasp is that you have just accepted what they said without even reading the whole study, and knowing how they gathered data, how they interviewed people, what they asked them, and then how they decided that there was a causal relationship.

I never claimed it is unselfish to have more children

You can dispute the correlation all you like, but its a huge pool of people and over four studies, which come to the same conclusion each time

Even more and again people have to be willing and wanting to help others

You simple think because they have more, then they will help more

That really is again quite absurd as, again these people are very much wanting to help people

They even admit they do not know the cause behind this but again there is a correlation

Do you understand that?

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thor wrote:

I never claimed it is unselfish to have more children

You can dispute the correlation all you like, but its a huge pool of people and over four studies, which come to the same conclusion each time

Even more and again people have to be willing and wanting to help others

You simple think because they have more, then they will help more

That really is again quite absurd as, again these people are very much wanting to help people

They even admit they do not know the cause behind this but again there is a correlation

Do you understand that?

Yes, of course I understand it, but you fail to understand that they have not established a causal relationship. As I said, wealthy people can afford to be more selfless, so you have to prove that they are wealthy because they are selfless, and not the other way round.

Thor wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Yes, of course I understand it, but you fail to understand that they have not established a causal relationship. As I said, wealthy people can afford to be more selfless, so you have to prove that they are wealthy because they are selfless, and not the other way round.

Yes you say many things Rags and never understand that this is actually a correlation

4 studies shows there is a correlation

You want to dispute them, the link is there, be my guest to post to them your concerns and then please post the replies for the forum

Good luck

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thor wrote:

Yes you say many things Rags and never understand that this is actually a correlation

4 studies shows there is a correlation

You want to dispute them, the link is there, be my guest to post to them your concerns and then please post the replies for the forum

Good luck

How many more times do I have to tell that there may well be a correlation, but that's not the same thing as a causal relationship, or cause and effect?

If you want to believe this study, it's entirely up to you. Perhaps you think you'll become richer if you're nicer - good luck with that.

Thor wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

How many more times do I have to tell that there may well be a correlation, but that's not the same thing as a causal relationship, or cause and effect?

If you want to believe this study, it's entirely up to you. Perhaps you think you'll become richer if you're nicer - good luck with that.

No, I would love for you to write to them and express your opinions and then come back with their replies

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thor wrote:

No, I would love for you to write to them and express your opinions and then come back with their replies

I'm sure you would. Perhaps I'll look at the whole study when it's available.

However, I'm not sure how this study is useful to anyone anyway.

Thor wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

I'm sure you would. Perhaps I'll look at the whole study when it's available.

However, I'm not sure how this study is useful to anyone anyway.

So I take that as a no then

I am sure they find many benefits of this to further research social interactions between people

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thor wrote:

So I take that as a no then

I am sure they find many benefits of this to further research social interactions between people

Post the whole study when it's available, and I'll see.

What benefits do you think they will get from this? Do you think that people will suddenly start having loads of kids because they think it'll make them richer, or that they'll become more "selfless"?

Thor wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Post the whole study when it's available, and I'll see.

What benefits do you think they will get from this? Do you think that people will suddenly start having loads of kids because they think it'll make them richer, or that they'll become more "selfless"?

Why do I need to do that when you can actually contact the people that carried out the study

Why would I think people would start to have lots of kids based on this?

I think we need to understand why unselfish people have correlation to through time earning high salaries

So whether this then does have a social interaction cause

Then we can understand what would be the benefits

Raggamuffin wrote:

Thor wrote:

Why do I need to do that when you can actually contact the people that carried out the study

Why would I think people would start to have lots of kids based on this?

I think we need to understand why unselfish people have correlation to through time earning high salaries

So whether this then does have a social interaction cause

Then we can understand what would be the benefits

You're the one who's most interested - you started a whole thread on it before knowing all the facts.

Why do we need to know if we don't know what the benefits would be?

It's good that you are now questioning that alleged correlation.