The Economics of Empathy (and Thanksgiving)

In the United States, the Thanksgiving holiday is two weeks away.  For those who have experienced it, Thanksgiving can be a wonderful holiday.  Everyone across ethnic, political, and religious lines can equally participate.  Indeed, that was the purpose in President Lincoln's proclaiming it a national holiday in 1863, when the country was torn apart by Civil War.

In more recent times, Thanksgiving seems to be part of a double holiday, or at least a double tradition. Thanksgiving Thursday is followed by Black Friday, so named because it is the day when, traditionally, retail sales increase to the point that merchants begin to turn a profit for the year. That is, their books move into the black. The observance of Thanksgiving is completed by consumption. Let us not forget that the purpose is to pause and render gratitude for the blessings of one's life. From the outside, however, it could seem as though Americans are most thankful that they can hit stores at ridiculously early hours on Friday morning to spend money on largely frivolous things.

That is a cynical view of Thanksgiving.  It is one to which I am susceptible.  But there are, I believe (or would like to think), more sober observers of this holiday and the use of money.  Some people volunteer at soup kitchens for the homeless or the working poor.  Others donate money to these shelters or similar aid organizations so that they can operate to serve the needy.  Many of these volunteers and donors tear up at the thought of a child's going hungry on any day, but especially on a festive day that celebrates not just bounty but, most basically, shared life together in community.  These people recognize that although they may be celebrating life, others are fighting for it.

These benefactors, just ordinary people, are thinking not primarily of their own happiness:  watching football, enjoying tasty food, relaxing from daily labors, basking in the company of treasured friends and family.  They are trying to share the simple happiness that comes from food with others who lack it.

In a 10-minute TED talk given two years ago, Harvard professor Michael Norton takes up the question "how to buy happiness."  His research, both in the United States and abroad, confirms, perhaps unsurprisingly but still emphatically, that people report increased happiness when they spend money on others, not on themselves.  The amount of money spent does not matter.  What matters is the target.

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_norton_how_to_buy_happiness.html

The short video is worth watching for the creative ways in which Norton and his colleagues test this hypothesis.  Some tests are even humorous.  And the results were not solely about personal happiness but, more generally, about the positive effects that accrue within groups who are charitable, empathetic, or just concerned about others.  There appears to be a multiplier effect that arises from demonstrating empathy:  the reward is greater than the investment when one invests in other people.

My sense is that this will also increase one's general sense of thanksgiving.  Spending money on others will foster an increased feeling of gratitude for one's current lot in life.  A huge part of this is through deepening personal connections.  Sometimes it comes from making the effort to establish them.

I am reminded of the Thanksgiving scene from the movie The Blind Side.  The video below does not adequately depict the scramble that the Tuohy family members have on Thanksgiving for the television where the day's American football games are being shown.  Thanksgiving in their world is about private consumption:  family members eating plates separately, watching multiple screens, and not really communing with one another.  They are alone together.  Their guest is alone by himself.  This is where the clip begins.

http://vimeo.com/67084873

Mrs. Tuohy discerns the difference, and she does something about it.  It was not enough, she realizes, to invite Michael into her home for the holiday because he had nowhere else to go.  She, and the rest of her family members, needed to make him part of their family.  And this meant that Mrs. Tuohy's family needed to act like one itself.  Disconnected viewing of television around a large room needed to give way to the connected holding of hands around the Thanksgiving table.

After all, what would have been the point of reproducing in their home the isolation that Michael already felt without one?

This is the economics of empathy:  greater rewards and personal happiness accrue when we invest in -- that is, spend time or money on -- other people.  First comes empathy, then happiness, because empathy establishes personal connection.  By it we embrace our common humanity.  This is the purpose.  But the effect is that by it also both giver and receiver become truly thankful.