one building to another, the soccer fans saw a runner slip on a grass bank, where he fell holding his
ankle and screaming in pain. Would they help him?
It depended on the T-shirt that he was wearing. When he wore a plain T-shirt, only 33 percent
helped. When he wore a Manchester United T-shirt, 92 percent helped. Yale psychologist Jack
Dovidio calls this “activating a common identity.” When people share an identity with another
person, giving to that person takes on an otherish quality. If we help people who belong to our group,
we’re also helping ourselves, as we’re making the group better off.*
A common identity was a key active ingredient behind the rapid growth of Freecycle, and the
unusually high levels of giving. When Berkeley professor Robb Willer’s team compared Craigslist
and Freecycle members, they were interested in the degree to which each group experienced
identification and cohesion. The more members identified, the more they saw Craigslist or Freecycle
as an important part of their self-images, as reflecting their core values. The more cohesion members
reported, the more they felt part of a meaningful Craigslist or Freecycle community. Would members
experience greater identification and cohesion with Craigslist or Freecycle?
The answer depends on how much a member has received from the site. For members who
received or bought few items, there were no differences in identification and cohesion between
Craigslist and Freecycle. People were equally attached and connected to both sites. But for members
who received or bought many items, there were stark differences: members reported substantially
greater identification and cohesion with Freecycle than Craigslist. This was true even after
accounting for members’ tendencies toward giving: regardless of whether they were givers or not,
members who participated frequently felt more attached to Freecycle than to Craigslist. Why would
people feel more identified and connected with a community where they give freely rather than
matching evenly?
Willer’s team argues that for two central reasons receiving is a fundamentally different
experience in generalized giving and direct matching systems. The first distinction lies in the terms of
the exchange. In direct matching, the exchange is an economic transaction. When members buy an item
on Craigslist, they know that sellers are typically trying to maximize their own gains with little
concern for buyers’ interests. In contrast, in generalized giving, givers aren’t getting anything tangible
back from the recipients. When members receive an item on Freecycle, they’re accepting a gift from a
giver with no strings attached. According to Willer’s team, this “suggests that the giver is motivated
to act in the interest of the recipient rather than in his or her own self-interest,” which “communicates
a regard for the recipient beyond the instrumental value attached to the item itself.” In comparison
with an economic transaction, a gift is value-laden.
The second distinction has to do with who’s responsible for the benefits you receive. When you
buy on Craigslist, if you receive an item at a good price, you can chalk it up to your savvy as a
negotiator or the kindness (or naïveté) of an individual seller. You’re exchanging back and forth with
another individual; you’re not getting anything from the Craigslist community. “As a result,
participants in direct exchange will be less inclined to identify with the group because they will be
less likely to derive the emotional experience of group membership,” Willer’s team writes. In
generalized giving, on the other hand, the community is the source of the gifts you receive. An
effective system of generalized giving typically involves cycles of exchange with the following
structure: person A gives to person B, who gives to person C. When Freecycle members receive
multiple items from different people, they attribute the benefits to the whole group, not to individual
michael s
(Michael S)
#1