Being Charitable Is a Competition for Guys
Published at
iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — For many men, everything is a competition.
Researchers in the U.K. studied donation patterns on over 2,000 online fundraising pages and found that guys will give four times more money to a fundraiser when the organizer is an attractive female and when another man has given a large donation.
The researchers have labeled this response “competitive helping.”
Women did not show any changes in donation patterns if a male fundraiser was attractive or if large donations were made by other women.
The researchers suggest the male behavior is likely subconscious, and may be due to an evolutionary psychology that motivates men to compete in the presence of an attractive woman, even if it’s a competition in charity.
The report is published in the journal Current Biology.
Follow @ABCNewsRadio
Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.