“The result is clear in both the American and the European data. The most unselfish people have the most children and the moderately unselfish receive the highest salaries. And we also find this result over time – the people who are most generous at one point in time have the largest salary

Kimmo Eriksson
Kimmo Eriksson. Photo: Jonas Bilberg

increases when researchers revisit them later in time,” says Kimmo Eriksson, researcher at the Centre for Cultural Evolution at Stockholm University and one of the authors of the study.

The result is contrary to theories that selfish people manage to get their hands on more money through their selfishness, as suggested in previous research.

 

Economical and evolutionary perspective

Previous psychological and sociological research has shown that unselfish people are happier and have better social relationships. The study “Generosity pays: Selfish people have fewer children and earn less money” focuses on unselfishness from an economical and evolutionary perspective.

Pontus Strimling

In this collaboration with the Institute for Futures Studies and the University of South Carolina, researchers at Stockholm University have looked at how selfishness relates to income and fertility. Selfishness was measured partly through attitudes and partly through reported behaviors.* The results are based on analyses of four major studies of Americans and Europeans. 


“In a separate study, we examined the expectations of ordinary people to see if their expectations aligned with our data. The results of this study showed that people generally have the correct expectation that selfish people have fewer children, but erroneously believe that selfish people will make more money. It is nice to see that generosity so often pays off in the long run,” says Pontus Strimling, a researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies, who is also one of the authors behind the study. 

Social relationships may be the key

Brent Simpson
Brent Simpson. Photo: Marianne van der Iest

The authors themselves believe that improved social relationships may be the key to generous peoples’ success from an economic perspective, but note that their research does not definitely answer this question.

“Future research will have to delve deeper into the reasons why generous people earn more, and look at whether the link between unselfishness, higher salaries and more children also exists in other parts of the world. And it is of course debatable how unselfish it really is to have more children,” says co-author Brent Simpson of University of South Carolina.

 

*Unselfishness is defined in the study as the desire to help others because you care about their welfare. Therefore, attitudes concern how important a person thinks it is to help others and care about their welfare. The behaviors concerned how often and how much the person engaged in various help behaviours, e.g. giving money or their time to help others.

About the study

The study “Generosity pays: Selfish people have fewer children and earn less money” was preliminarily published online on 27 September 2018, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. To gain access to the entire study, contact research assistant Marie Björnstjerna, marie.bjornstjerna@iffs.se.