Have you ever come across someone who is incredibly kind and morally upright – and yet also deeply insufferable? They might try to do anything they can to help you or engage in a host of important, useful activities benefiting friends and the wider community. Yet they seem a little bit too pleased with their good deeds and, without any good reason to think so, you suspect that there’s something calculated about their altruism.
Finding yourself taking such an uncharitable attitude towards people who are only trying to make the world a better place might feel uncomfortable. Yet this scepticism is a known behaviour, described by psychologists as “do-gooder derogation”. And while the phenomenon may seem to be wholly irrational, there are some compelling evolutionary reasons for being wary of unreciprocated altruism.
With an understanding of our innate suspicion around overt acts of kindness, we can identify the specific situations in which generosity is welcomed and when it is resented – with some important lessons for our own behaviour.
No good deed goes unpunished
One of the earliest and most systematic examinations of do-gooder derogation comes from a global study by Simon Gächter, a professor of psychology at the University of Nottingham in the UK.
Like many studies into altruism, his experiment took the form of a “public goods game”. The participants were divided into groups of four, and each person was given tokens representing a small sum of money. Participants were then given the possibility of contributing some of that income to a communal pool in each round of a game. Once everyone had placed their investment, each person would receive 40% of the total sum invested by the group.
If the participants play fairly, each round should provide a reasonable return on investment for each person. Those who are very stingy, however, can game the system by paying very little themselves and reaping the rewards of others’ investments. It’s easy to see how resentments could build. After 10 rounds, the researchers therefore gave the participants the option of penalising other players by deducting some of the income they received.