People tend to work on the basis of checking off each of their must-do satisfaction actions for a day:
1) Catch/gather food, or do something to pay for food. Check.
2) Eat/stockpile food or stuff to barter for food. Check.
3) Do I have kids? Make sure they’re still around and fed. Check.
4) Kid’s other parent around? Have sex, if we’re not too tired. Check?
(Note this is not a caveman kind of thing. This is my basic day, and I suspect the basic day of many others.)
Most religions are constructed around lists of things you’re not supposed to do, because these lists are the only way to get the attention of things-to-do off-checking people. “I could get my food ration for the day by bonking that guy over there. But, I’m not supposed to steal, so, won’t do that.” We absorb those “Thou shalt nots” pretty early, for the most part, and then we move on to efficiently guiding ourselves and our families through the day. Most people get pretty good at this.
So, once we’re good at checking off our satisfaction list without breaking the rules, what do we do with our left-over intellectual capacity/stockpiled food-barter? The traditional expectation in charity from every “good Christian” is “10% of your income.” (Most think you can substitute volunteer time for some of that.) Also, traditionally, all that money and time went to or through the Church, but still, it’s a good jumping off point. The 10% tithing, with volunteer work as acceptable substitute, rule is right there, waiting for you. But we, here, are not interested in blindly following rules that were made long, long ago in a completely different era. We want optimization.
(aside: if even a slim majority of well-off people followed tithing rules, whether to churches or to SIAI or anywhere in between, it might be horribly inefficient, but I’ve a feeling it would also be adequate to address most charitable needs. Still, in discussions here we aren’t just interested in solving the problems we’ve got now, but also in having approaches that would theoretically solve whatever problems arose. /aside)
The next easiest thing for us to do is to add to our satisfaction checklist:
5) Be nice to someone.
This is perhaps what most people do. The studies described fit with this, and though that doesn’t prove the validity of the hypothesis, it does describe how I feel, myself. So, I offer it for consideration.
But I think the checklist has an internal daily quality to it—that is, the checklist resets daily, because the things we always have to get done, like eating and feeding the kids, usually need to get done daily or close to daily. (I think this has implications for those pondering the value of knocking off work on good days vs bad days. I find it is difficult to plan satisfaction over multiple days. Not impossible, but strategies that do not require adherence to multiple-day [as opposed to single-day or lifetime] pre-commitments may do demonstrably better.)
So, I think your chip-in-the-jar method has real merit, because it bypasses the difficulty of planning to do good things over multiple days. However, it may cause you to donate your time less than might be optimal, or to donate to new causes that might be worthy, because you daily see the jars and the good work you’re planning, so beware.
Fundamentally, if my hypothesis is correct, I’m saying the gratification from doing good things may come from our own self-programming. So,
A) reducing acclaim for certain acts may not make a difference,
B) talking about morality often is still important, to keep being nice on the checklist
C) consciously withholding self-reward for small acts may work, but it may also serve to extinct the conditioning you’ve already built up. Be careful when self-programming!
D) The religious self-program much less than we do, and they are more charitable. If we are rational, we should do better than they. (Ack, Can’t find the link where I read that exact thing here...have to go!)
People tend to work on the basis of checking off each of their must-do satisfaction actions for a day: 1) Catch/gather food, or do something to pay for food. Check. 2) Eat/stockpile food or stuff to barter for food. Check. 3) Do I have kids? Make sure they’re still around and fed. Check. 4) Kid’s other parent around? Have sex, if we’re not too tired. Check?
(Note this is not a caveman kind of thing. This is my basic day, and I suspect the basic day of many others.)
Most religions are constructed around lists of things you’re not supposed to do, because these lists are the only way to get the attention of things-to-do off-checking people. “I could get my food ration for the day by bonking that guy over there. But, I’m not supposed to steal, so, won’t do that.” We absorb those “Thou shalt nots” pretty early, for the most part, and then we move on to efficiently guiding ourselves and our families through the day. Most people get pretty good at this.
So, once we’re good at checking off our satisfaction list without breaking the rules, what do we do with our left-over intellectual capacity/stockpiled food-barter? The traditional expectation in charity from every “good Christian” is “10% of your income.” (Most think you can substitute volunteer time for some of that.) Also, traditionally, all that money and time went to or through the Church, but still, it’s a good jumping off point. The 10% tithing, with volunteer work as acceptable substitute, rule is right there, waiting for you. But we, here, are not interested in blindly following rules that were made long, long ago in a completely different era. We want optimization.
(aside: if even a slim majority of well-off people followed tithing rules, whether to churches or to SIAI or anywhere in between, it might be horribly inefficient, but I’ve a feeling it would also be adequate to address most charitable needs. Still, in discussions here we aren’t just interested in solving the problems we’ve got now, but also in having approaches that would theoretically solve whatever problems arose. /aside)
The next easiest thing for us to do is to add to our satisfaction checklist: 5) Be nice to someone. This is perhaps what most people do. The studies described fit with this, and though that doesn’t prove the validity of the hypothesis, it does describe how I feel, myself. So, I offer it for consideration.
But I think the checklist has an internal daily quality to it—that is, the checklist resets daily, because the things we always have to get done, like eating and feeding the kids, usually need to get done daily or close to daily. (I think this has implications for those pondering the value of knocking off work on good days vs bad days. I find it is difficult to plan satisfaction over multiple days. Not impossible, but strategies that do not require adherence to multiple-day [as opposed to single-day or lifetime] pre-commitments may do demonstrably better.)
So, I think your chip-in-the-jar method has real merit, because it bypasses the difficulty of planning to do good things over multiple days. However, it may cause you to donate your time less than might be optimal, or to donate to new causes that might be worthy, because you daily see the jars and the good work you’re planning, so beware.
Fundamentally, if my hypothesis is correct, I’m saying the gratification from doing good things may come from our own self-programming. So, A) reducing acclaim for certain acts may not make a difference, B) talking about morality often is still important, to keep being nice on the checklist C) consciously withholding self-reward for small acts may work, but it may also serve to extinct the conditioning you’ve already built up. Be careful when self-programming! D) The religious self-program much less than we do, and they are more charitable. If we are rational, we should do better than they. (Ack, Can’t find the link where I read that exact thing here...have to go!)