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Research Projects
- Science of Generosity: Causes, Manifestations and Consequences of Generous Behaviors
- The Social Contagion of Generosity
- The Family Cycle of Kindness and Generosity
- Religious Institutions and Generosity: Catholicism and Islam
- The Inherent Sociality of Giving and Altruism
- Attachment Formation, Compassion and Generosity
- Does Microfinancing Promote Generosity?
- The Foundations of Marital Generosity
- The Neural Circuitry Underlying Altruistic Behavior
- Generosity from an Intercultural Perspective
- The Causes and Effects of Workplace Generosity
- The Causes of Intergenerational Generosity
- The Development of Prosocial Behavior
- The Socioeconomic Basis of Generosity in Britain
Category Archives: Prosocial behavior
Generosity research offers new insight into how children share
Current consensus among psychologists is that children under about five years of age don’t consider merit when sharing with other children, but Felix Warneken has recently found that children begin to share according to merit as early three years old. … Continue reading
Posted in Causes, Decisionmaking, Evolution and generosity, Generosity in children, Prosocial behavior, The Development of Prosocial Behavior
Tagged Generosity in children
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Wall Street Journal story on generosity research
Pulitzer prize winning Wall Street Journal reporter Kevin Helliker recently did a story about early results from Ariel Knafo’s project, “The Family Cycle of Kindness and Generosity.” Knafo and his group discovered a genetic idiosyncrasy in young children that is … Continue reading
Posted in Family kindness and generosity, Kindness, Prosocial behavior, The Development of Prosocial Behavior
Tagged teaching generosity to children
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How cooperation spreads in social networks
In a paper recently published in the PNAS, Sci Gen researchers Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler found that members of social networks are influenced by fellow group members’ contribution behavior in future interactions with others who were not involved in … Continue reading
Posted in Cooperation in social networks, Generosity and social networks, Prosocial behavior, Uncategorized
Tagged cooperation in social networks, cooperative behavior
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What causes parents to transmit generosity?
In October co-Investigator Ye Zhang presented the paper “What Motives Cause Parents to Transmit Generosity?” (co-authored with Mark Ottoni-Wilhelm) at the Conference on the Economics of the Family in Paris. The conference, hosted by the Institut National d’Etudes démographiques, the … Continue reading
Posted in Intergenerational Causes of Generosity, Prosocial behavior
Tagged intergenerational generosity, transmitting generosity to children
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How good is good enough?
OK… So What Now? is a series of first person investigations into the moral and ethical challenges of leading an examined life. Each episode centers around one dilemma from our modern life, and features interviews with guests who have some … Continue reading
Posted in Decisionmaking, Intergenerational Causes of Generosity, Prosocial behavior, The Development of Prosocial Behavior, Uncategorized
Tagged decisionmaking, generosity, giving
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How one economist began to study generosity
How I got interested in generosity and why I stay interested are two different stories. I took up economics because I wanted to work on income inequality, thinking that inheritances are an important factor that make inequality bigger. Surprisingly, Gary … Continue reading
Posted in Intergenerational Causes of Generosity, Prosocial behavior
Tagged Family behavior, Helping, Income inequality, Welfare
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Challenging the assumptions of conventional economics
I’m an economist who entertains a broad palette of possible tastes and motives in the people I study. Some of these tastes and motives come from psychological, some from sociology, some from linguistics, and some just from approaching the world … Continue reading
Posted in Prosocial behavior
Tagged Behavioral economics, Self interest
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From social problems to social goods
Back when I was in graduate school, I was having trouble picking my dissertation topic. Coming from the typical sociology “social problems” perspective, I could not decide which social problem was important enough to study exclusively. One day I started … Continue reading
Posted in Generosity from a Cross-Cultural Perspective, Prosocial behavior, Social capital
Tagged Prosocial behavior, Social capital, Social goods, Trust, Volunteering
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