Effective Altruism and the Human Mind : The Clash Between Impact and Intuition

This book uses recent research and empirical evidence to give quantifiable psychological explanations for why people donate vast amounts of money to charities with limited impact, known as ineffective giving. It unpacks the influence of misconceptions, cognitive biases, preferences for emotionally appealing but ineffective charities, and offers strategies for overcoming the obstacles that contribute to the problem.

Each year, people donate billions to charities that are but a fraction as impactful as the most effective charities. Why is that? Why are people not helping others more effectively, as proposed by effective altruism? This book seeks to give a psychological explanation, drawing on decades of empirical research. It investigates the role of preferences, norms, and beliefs and shows how intuition can limit impact. The second part of the book shows how we can overcome these obstacles through information campaigns, incentivization techniques, and fundamental value change. It ends with a discussion of how we can use psychology to apply effective altruism in everyday life. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.