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Who is most generous? The fairer sex

Women no longer have to rely on anecdotal evidence that they are less mean than men, writes Rhys Blakely.

More than 150 years ago Charles Darwin wondered whether he'd spotted a distinction between the sexes. "Woman seems to differ from man in mental disposition, chiefly in her greater tenderness and less selfishness," he wrote in The Descent of Man.

One of the largest studies of its kind has now added weight to the great naturalist's hunch, with results suggesting that women are more generous than men. More precisely, in an experiment that involved people having to decide whether to keep all of a small cash windfall or give some of it away to a stranger, women parted with 40 per cent more money than their parsimonious male peers.

The research involved more than 1.000 adults who took part in what is known as "the dictator game". Often used in experiments by psychologists and economists, it involves two players but no real contest. One player — the "dictator" — was given €10 (£8.30) and asked how much they would like to share with a second player, chosen at random from the pool of participants.

The dictators did not know who they were paired with, nor whether the recipient was male or female. However, they were told that when it was their turn to be in the recipient role they would be placed with a different person, to lessen the chance of decisions influenced by reciprocity. On average, women gave away €3.50, 40 per cent more than the men, who transferred €2.50.

Moreover, while the most common decision for men was to not share anything with their partner, the choice made most frequently by women was to split the money 50-50.

Professor Marina Pavan of Jaume I University in Spain, a co-author of the research, said that the results had taken her team by surprise. "What surprised us was the relatively big difference in giving between men and women," she said. The size of the experiment helped, Pavan explained. "Most existing studies showed small or no differences in generosity between genders, but did not have the number of observations we have," she said. Pavan and her colleagues also looked at the results of personality tests taken by the participants.

They found two character traits that positively influenced generosity: openness (which is related to curiosity and tolerance to change) and, perhaps unsurprisingly, agreeableness (which is related to empathy). There was also a link between women being less generous if they showed a stronger reasoning ability. Other academics have suggested that women are more generous than men because society expects them to be, which means they suffer more negative consequences, compared with men, if they are not.

But overall, Pavan suggested that the experiments had shone a light on a positive side of human nature. "Notice that in this game, given that the recipient is anonymous and does not have any say in the proponent's decision, according to standard economic theory we would expect people not to transfer anything," she said. "However, surprisingly, they do —that is why we use this game to measure 'altruism'".

The research joins a growing body of work on altruism. Another study, published in 2020, suggested that cancer patients experienced less chronic pain when they helped to care for others on the same ward. Experiments also showed that healthy subjects who had recently acted selflessly experienced less physical discomfort from needle jabs and electric shocks, leading researchers to suggest that altruistic acts could be prescribed for their analgesic properties.

Another study, published in September, concluded that being kind leads people to be seen as more physically attractive. The results suggested that being thought of as intelligent or funny increased an individual's aesthetic appeal But being perceived as generous and altruistic beat both of those traits. The results made sense from an evolutionary perspective, the researchers said. "Being helpful, generous and co-operative is beneficial in both social and survival contexts. In mate choice, these traits signal that someone could be a reliable, long-term partner," they explained.

The lastest results are published in the journal PLOS One. 

13/02/2025 | The Times