Purely altruistic, impurely altruistic, and egoistic: Behavioral scientists use their research to divide donors into three categories (so far).
"There are several questions that have fascinated behavioural scientists for decades: why do people ignore information that is right in front of us? Why do we seem to care so little about our long-term futures? And why do we give money to charity? Behavioural science can help us to unpack the question further. Researchers have looked into why people donate, why they don’t do it as much as they would hope to and how to bridge this gap." -- Michael Sanders and Francesca Tamma, the Guardian.co.uk
