Need a reason to be charitable? According to folks who get paid to find this stuff out, being altruistic makes you very attractive to the opposite sex.
In three studies involving more than 1,000 people, Dr. Tim Phillips and his research team from the University of Nottingham found that women place significantly greater importance on altruistic traits than anything else (in all three studies). The findings were published in the British Journal of Psychology. And the results may not only apply to women. When questioning couples, there was a correlation indicating both sexes may consider altruistic traits when choosing a mate.
“Evolutionary theory predicts competition between individuals and yet we see many examples in nature of individuals disadvantaging themselves to help others. In humans, particularly, we see individuals prepared to put themselves at considerable risk to help individuals they do not know for no obvious reward.” said Dr. Phillips.
Dr Phillips added:
“For many years the standard explanation for altruistic behaviour towards non-relatives has been based on reciprocity and reputation — a version of ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’. I believe we need to look elsewhere to understand the roots of human altruism. The expansion of the human brain would have greatly increased the cost of raising children so it would have been important for our ancestors to choose mates both willing and able to be good, long-term parents. Displays of altruism could well have provided accurate clues to this and genes linked to altruism would have been favoured as a result.”
Hmm… maybe charity is also good for attracting business.
Source: Science Daily (h/t Neurosciencemarketing)
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