Yeah, the negative correlation between education and expansive altruism was also the most surprising to me.
However, these correlations might not hold up in the general population as it could be something specific to MTurkers.
It seems that the negative correlation is mostly due to the items “I would make a career change if it meant that I could improve the lives of people in need” (r = -.21, p < .001) and “From a moral perspective, the suffering of all beings matters roughly the same, no matter to what species they belong to” (r = -.18, p < .01). Perhaps more educated people are more happy with their career and thus more reluctant to change it? I don’t understand the negative correlation with the anti-speciesism item.
Perhaps more educated people are more happy with their career and thus more reluctant to change it?
Or just more invested in it—if you’ve spent several years acquiring a degree in a topic, you may be quite reluctant to go do something completely different.
For future studies, might be worth rephrasing this item in a way where this doesn’t act as a confounder for the results? I’d expect people in their early twenties to answer it quite differently than people in their early forties.
I see that it may seem surprising at first glance that education doesn’t correlate positively with our two scales. (Like David, I am not sure if the negative correlation will hold up.) It seems surprising because we know that most existing highly engaged EAs are highly educated (and likely have high cognitive abilities). But what this lack of positive correlation shows is simply that high education (and probably also high cognitive abilities) is not required to intuitively share the core moral values of EA.
As we point out in the article, there are likely several additional factors that predict whether someone will become a highly engaged EA. And it’s possible that education (and likely high cognitive abilities) is such an additional, and psychologically separate, factor.
Is it possible that those are confounded by age? That is, young people are more likely to favor expansive altruism (which the surveys say are true) and also incidentally have less education and lower income.
We considered this too. But the significant correlations with education level and income held even after controlling for age. (We mention this below one of the tables.)
the findings that education and income both anticorrelate with expansive altruism were the most surprising to me.
what surprised you the most?
lastly I am somewhat surprised to see no mention of autism.
Yeah, the negative correlation between education and expansive altruism was also the most surprising to me.
However, these correlations might not hold up in the general population as it could be something specific to MTurkers.
It seems that the negative correlation is mostly due to the items “I would make a career change if it meant that I could improve the lives of people in need” (r = -.21, p < .001) and “From a moral perspective, the suffering of all beings matters roughly the same, no matter to what species they belong to” (r = -.18, p < .01). Perhaps more educated people are more happy with their career and thus more reluctant to change it? I don’t understand the negative correlation with the anti-speciesism item.
Or just more invested in it—if you’ve spent several years acquiring a degree in a topic, you may be quite reluctant to go do something completely different.
For future studies, might be worth rephrasing this item in a way where this doesn’t act as a confounder for the results? I’d expect people in their early twenties to answer it quite differently than people in their early forties.
Good point!
>I’d expect people in their early twenties to answer it quite differently than people in their early forties.
I’d have expected this as well but according to the data age doesn’t make a difference when it comes to answering the career item (r = -.04, p = .56).
Huh! That’s surprising.
I see that it may seem surprising at first glance that education doesn’t correlate positively with our two scales. (Like David, I am not sure if the negative correlation will hold up.) It seems surprising because we know that most existing highly engaged EAs are highly educated (and likely have high cognitive abilities). But what this lack of positive correlation shows is simply that high education (and probably also high cognitive abilities) is not required to intuitively share the core moral values of EA.
As we point out in the article, there are likely several additional factors that predict whether someone will become a highly engaged EA. And it’s possible that education (and likely high cognitive abilities) is such an additional, and psychologically separate, factor.
Is it possible that those are confounded by age? That is, young people are more likely to favor expansive altruism (which the surveys say are true) and also incidentally have less education and lower income.
We considered this too. But the significant correlations with education level and income held even after controlling for age. (We mention this below one of the tables.)
Ah thanks, I missed that table.
That would be my assumption, but OP says
> Note that the significant correlations with education level and income held even after controlling for age.