WHAT
makes some men miserly and others generous? What motivated Bill Gates, for example,
to make more than $28 billion in philanthropic gifts while many of his
billionaire peers kept relatively tightfisted control over their personal
fortunes?
New
evidence reveals a surprising answer. The mere presence of female family
members — even infants — can be enough to nudge men in the generous direction.
In a provocative new study, the researchers Michael Dahl,
Cristian Dezso and David Gaddis Ross examined generosity and what inspires it
in wealthy men. Rather than looking at large-scale charitable giving, they
looked at why some male chief executives paid their employees more generously
than others. The researchers tracked the wages that male chief executives at
more than 10,000 Danish companies paid their employees over the course of a
decade.
Interestingly,
the chief executives paid their employees less after becoming fathers. On
average, after chief executives had a child, they paid about $100 less in
annual compensation per employee. To be a good provider, the researchers write,
it’s all too common for a male chief executive to claim “his firm’s resources
for himself and his growing family, at the expense of his employees.”
But
there was a twist. When Professor Dahl’s team examined the data more closely,
the changes in pay depended on the gender of the child that the chief
executives fathered. They reduced wages after having a son, but not after
having a daughter.
Daughters
apparently soften fathers and evoke more caretaking tendencies. The speculation
is that as we brush our daughters’ hair and take them to dance classes, we
become gentler, more empathetic and more other-oriented.
There
are even studies showing that American legislators with daughters vote more liberally; this is also true of British male voters who
have daughters, especially in terms of referendum and policy choices about
reproductive rights. “A father takes on some of the preferences of his female
offspring,” argue the researchers Andrew Oswald at the University of Warwick
and Nattavudh Powdthavee, then at the University of York. For male chief
executives, this daughter-driven empathy spike may account for more generous
impulses toward employees that temper the temptation toward wage cuts.
Is it
possible that proximity to infant girls prompts greater generosity? Additional
studies, in a variety of fields, suggest this is the case — and that it might
extend beyond daughters. Consider, for example, the series of studies led by the psychologist Paul
Van Lange at the Free University in Amsterdam. To figure out what motivates
people to act generously, Professor Van Lange and three colleagues set up a
game in which more than 600 people made choices about sharing resources with
someone they didn’t know and would never meet again. The participants chose
between these basic options:
(a)
You get $25 and your partner gets $10.
(b)
You get $20 and your partner gets $30.
The
first option is the selfish one; you’re claiming most of the resources for
yourself. The latter option is more generous as it involves sacrificing a small
amount ($5) to increase your partner’s gains by a much larger amount ($20).
The
players expressed consistent preferences in each of the nine rounds they played
on Professor Van Lange’s watch. The data showed that players who made the more
generous choices had more siblings. The givers averaged two siblings; the
others averaged one and a half siblings. More siblings means more sharing,
which seems to predispose people toward giving.
And
once again, gender mattered. The givers were 40 percent more likely to have
sisters than the people who made more self-serving, competitive choices. (There
was no difference in the number of brothers; it was the number of sisters, not
siblings, that predicted greater giving.) And Professor Van Lange’s team
pointed to another study showing that the more sisters a father has, the more
time he spends raising his own children. After growing up with sisters, men who
have opportunities to give are more likely to do so.
SOCIAL
scientists believe that the empathetic, nurturing behaviors of sisters rub off
on their brothers. For example, studies led by the psychologist Alice Eagly at
Northwestern University demonstrate that women tend to do more giving
and helping in close relationships than men. It might also be that boys feel
the impulse — by nature and nurture — to protect their sisters. Indeed,
Professor Eagly finds that men are significantly more likely to help women than
to help men.
Some
of the world’s most charitable men acknowledge the inspiration provided by the
women in their lives. Twenty years ago, when Bill Gates was on his way to
becoming the world’s richest man, he rejected advice to set up a charitable
foundation. He planned to wait a quarter-century before he started giving his
money away, but changed his mind the following year. Just three years later,
Mr. Gates ranked third on Fortune’s list of the most generous philanthropists
in America. In between, he welcomed his first child: a daughter.
Mr.
Gates has reflected that two female family members — his mother, Mary, and his
wife, Melinda — were major catalysts for his philanthropic surge. Mary “never
stopped pressing me to do more for others,” Mr. Gates said in a Harvard commencement speech. The turning point
came in 1993, shortly before he and Melinda married. At a wedding event, Mary
read a letter aloud that she had written to Melinda about marriage. Her
concluding message was reminiscent of the Voltaire (or Spiderman) mantra that
great power implies great responsibility: “From those to whom much is given,
much is expected.”
Along
with guiding much of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s philanthropy,
Melinda played a pivotal role in shaping the Giving Pledge. She read a book
about a family that sold their home and gave half the proceeds to charity, and
began spreading the word about the idea. When Bill Gates and Warren Buffett
convened dinners for billionaires to discuss philanthropy, Ms. Gates made sure
that wives were invited, too. “Even if he’s the one that made the money, she’s
going to be a real gatekeeper,” she said. “And she’s got to go along with any
philanthropic plan because it affects her and it affects their kids.”
In a
provocative 2007 presentation in San Francisco, the psychologist Roy Baumeister
asked, “Is there anything good about men?” (The short answer, if
you haven’t read “Demonic Males,” by Dale Peterson and Richard
Wrangham, is not much.) But our saving grace, Professor Baumeister argues, is
that across a wide range of attributes, “men go to extremes more than women.”
Men are responsible for the lion’s share of the worst acts of aggression and
selfishness, but they also engage in some of the most extreme acts of helping
and generosity.
On
this point, the economists James Andreoni at the University of California, San
Diego, and Lise Vesterlund at the University of Pittsburgh report evidence that whereas many women prefer
to share evenly, “men are more likely to be either perfectly selfish or
perfectly selfless.” It may be that meaningful contact with women is one of the
forces that tilt men toward greater selflessness.
THE
warming effect of women on men has important implications for education and
work. In schools, we need to think carefully about how we organize children
into groups. In 1971, in the wake of Texas school desegregation, Elliot
Aronson, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, validated
a simple but
powerful approach to reducing stereotypes and prejudice.
His
core idea was that students would learn to respect and care about one another
if they had to rely upon one another when collaborating in small groups toward
shared goals. Professor Aronson made each student responsible for teaching the
group about a different topic that would be covered on a coming test. It was
like working on a jigsaw puzzle: the group needed pieces of information from
every member in order to put together the general understanding that would be
measured on the test. After the experiment, stereotypes and prejudice fell —
the students became significantly less hostile toward one another — and the
minority students got better grades.
What
would happen if every classroom followed the jigsaw structure, with
mixed-gender study groups providing boys with the opportunity to learn from
girls? In addition to gaining knowledge, perhaps they would learn something
about teaching, helping and caring for others. When some of those boys grow up
to become rich men, they might be less like Scrooge and more like Mr. Gates —
or at least less likely to become your wealthy neighbor who refuses to pay his
share of the hedge trimming. Or your (not so) great-uncle who always flies
first class but sends your kids cheap birthday presents.
At
work, we sorely need more women in leadership positions. We already know from
considerable research that companies are better off when they have more women
in top management roles, especially when it comes to innovation. Professors
Dezso and Ross have recently shown that between 1992 and 2006,
when companies introduced women onto their top management teams, they generated
an average of 1 percent more economic value, which typically meant more than
$40 million.
We
recognize the direct advantages that women as leaders bring to the table, which
often include diverse perspectives, collaborative styles, dedication to
mentoring and keen understanding of female employees and customers. But we’ve
largely overlooked the beneficial effects that women have on the men around
them. Is it possible that when women join top management teams, they encourage
male colleagues to treat employees more generously and to share knowledge more
freely? Increases in motivation, cooperation, and innovation in companies may
be fueled not only by the direct actions of female leaders, but also by their
influence on male leaders.
It’s
often said that behind every great man stands a great woman. In light of the
profound influence that women can have on men’s generosity, it might be more
accurate to say that in front of every great man walks a great woman. If we’re
wise, we’ll follow her lead.
Adam Grant is a professor
at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of “ Give and
Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success.”
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