While getting my oil changed today, I was waiting in the cramped, stinky “lobby” of the ineptly named “xpress lube” and was surprised to find a high-class Economist magazine among so many other issues of Nascar Review and US Weekly. I quickly grabbed for the mature rag (no doubt pilfered from a dentist’s office) and flipped past thirty pages of British critique of Bush and Company to find an article reviewing the psychology of giving. This article was both fascinating and depressing.
***
Early in my psychology studies as an undergrad I came across the “social exchange theory”. This bastard child of pessimistic research nerds tries to gratify their anti-social traits by attributing every social relationship or seemingly altruistic action to a simple “we give to get” premise. In other words, this theory states we only interact when it is in our own self-interests. This makes no exception for casual conversation, token gifts, or random acts of kindness – all of these things are done to score points to be cashed in later for some specific purpose. Thus, when I go out to my porch whenever I smell cigarette smoke, hoping to find one or both of my treasured neighbors outside sucking down some sweet nicotine and pining for two minutes of conversation, I am really going out there to put a few coins in the Hatch and MJB banks to gain their favor in case I need something from them later on – and they put up with my nearly incoherent ramblings about the damn cat because they want to invest in Bry should they run out of beer and want to bum one from me.
Having sifted through my fair share of psychological teachings, and being a logical person, I understand this theory at its core. It makes sense on a basic level, but who the hell would want to admit or believe that their friendships are based solely on the intrinsic value to be extracted from them in a time of need? That, my friends, is truly depressing, and is something I am not willing to subscribe to.
So how does the oil change article relate? It stated that men only perform selfless acts (volunteering, donations, etc.) in order to show off to the opposite sex as part of a larger courting ritual. Specifically, men want to exhibit how well-off they are by making it clear they have enough excess to be able to throw some of their time and money at things women will appreciate. A study cited by this article showed that men would not donate anonymously nor would they do volunteer work that gave them little to no exposure as they would not be getting the attention and admiration from women that supposedly motivated them in the first place.
As the article asserts the social exchange theory, it puts another nail in the coffin and in short made me feel like a real douchebag. I started to wonder, do I act this way? Do I give only in order to receive? I like to think not, or at least I like to think I know when I am doing so. While I have done things that felt, at the time, to be selfless and altruistic, I can look back and see how I might have done those things due to a subconscious realization that I had something to gain. What about you?
