Generosity vs Greed

Related Topic: LEGITIMIZATION OF PURSUIT OF WEALTH

List of Relevent Articles and Books:

  1. Charness,Gary and Mattew Rabin (2002), " Understanding Social Preferences With Simple Tests",The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 3(117):817-869

    1. Piliavin and Chang (1990), "Altruism: A Review of Recent Theory and Research", Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 16, pp. 27-65.

    2. Giving with Impure Altruism: Application to Charity and Richardian Equivalence

    3. Impure Altruism and Donations to Public goods: A Theory of Warm Giving.

    4. Materialism: Trait Aspects of Living in the Material World.

    5. The Jurisprudence of Greed by Eric Posner

    6. Greed: Need or Creed? Farmland Ethics in the Rural-Urban Fringe, Harry Spaling and John R. Wood, Land Use Policy VoI. 15, No 2, pp. 105-118, 1998

    7. Research Notes: A Nondualistic Approach to Altruism and Egoism: In the Giving of Self Lies the Discovery of Self.

    8. Greed Economics and Ethics in Conflict.

  2. Greed: Gut Feelings, Growth, and History.

  3. Crum, Heidi and Philip J. Grossman(2008), "An Experimental Test of Warm Glow Giving", journal of public Economics, 92: 1011-1021

    1. The Early Development of Empathy: Self Regulation and Individual Differences in The First Year.

    2. The Ontogeny and Significance of Infants' Facial Expressions in the First 9 Months of Life.

    3. The Origins of Empathic Concern

Greed is responsible for Financial Crisis:[link]

Invisible Hand Issues [link]

"Prosocial Spending and Well-Being: Cross-Cultural Evidence for a Psychological Universal"

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1685722

NBER Working Paper No. w16415

This research provides the first support for a possible psychological universal: human beings around the world derive emotional benefits from using their financial resources to help others (prosocial spending). Analyzing survey data from 136 countries, we show that prosocial spending is consistently associated with greater happiness. To test for causality, we conduct experiments within two very different countries (Canada and Uganda) and show that spending money on others has a consistent, causal mpact on happiness. In contrast to traditional economic thought - which places self-interest as the guiding principle of human motivation - our findings suggest that the reward experienced from helping others may be deeply ingrained in human nature, emerging in diverse cultural and economic contexts.

MORE REFERENCES in Passage Below

The building blocks of empathy in children are evident in the very young. From birth, babies have an ability to respond to the emotions of others. For example, babies can imitate the facial expressions of parents and caregivers, or burst into tears if they hear another baby crying. At three months, they respond differently to happy or sad faces (Izard, et al., 1995). One-year-olds show signs of distress when shown videotapes of other children crying (Ungerer, et al., 1990). A child will begin to show concern for others at about one year of age. In a well regarded study, researchers trained mothers to observe and record their children's emotional responses to others, including the mothers' owned feigned states of sadness and joy. Researchers also visited once a month to record their own observations. The findings are noteworthy: at 13-15 months, greater than 50% of the children tried to hug, pat, or touch another person who was distressed ("prosocial behavior"), responding to perceived emotions and trying to make the other person feel better; at 18-20, months the responsiveness increased and was expressed in a variety of helping behaviors, such as sharing goodies, trying to bring bandages or blankets, etc.; at 23-25 months they revealed even more empathy as all but one child in the study showed concern as well as helping behaviors, mainly toward mothers but even including strangers (Zahn-Waxler, et al., 1992).