So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Mark 7:12
“Generosity also seems to carry benefits when interactions between people do not go as planned because of unexpected circumstances (what is termed “social noise”). For example, imagine this scenario: Your friend did not respond to your email because of a problem with his internet connection. Because you did not know of the problem, you may think your friend is ignoring you, which may lead you to delay responding to the next email from your friend as a form of reciprocation. One study found that generosity can help overcome the detrimental effects caused by this type of “noise” in social dilemmas.
The study found that rather than responding to someone’s actions with strict reciprocity in “tit-for-tat” fashion, behaving slightly more generously than that person’s last action leads to more overall cooperation. This suggests that adding a small generosity buffer and giving someone the benefit of the doubt may lead to more cooperation and stronger relationships. However, the paper also highlights how deferring to increased generosity can sometimes be problematic—say, in a situation where two friends end up buying each other more and more expensive gifts even when neither party actually wants to spend that much.
A follow-up study with different experimental paradigms confirmed and extended the findings from this study. In fact, results from the second study showed that “even when there was no noise, the other-regarding strategies elicited equal or even greater cooperation levels (in case of a generous strategy) than did tit-for-tat.” According to the researchers, these results suggest that “the power of generosity is underestimated in the extant literature, especially in its ability to maintain or build trust, which is essential for coping with noise.”
Summer Allen in “The Science of Generosity” White Paper produced by the Greater Good Science Center.
I really resonated with this research on social noise. Life happens. It’s complicated. We intend to reply to a message, and something happens. Recently our internet was out for two days. It seemed like two years.
And yet, the research proves that if we extend grace to others and engage “other-regarding strategies,” they will likely extend grace to us. This helps strengthens our social interaction and exhibits our Christian faith.
Our onsite teaching on “Stewardship and Standards” went phenomenal in Bogotá, Colombia, yesterday (pictured above). Today, we train trainers to replicate “Stations of Generosity.” Keep praying for us as there’s lots of social noise.
We anticipated 60 people today and about 50 came. “Social noise” or stuff in life kept about 10 away. They messaged and sent regrets. Of course, we responded graciously and let them know where to find the information they missed.
How might you engage “other-regarding strategies” in your social interaction to exhibit generosity? Let’s resolve to extend the amount of grace to others as we want God to extend to us.