Thanks Ari for your post.
This is very interesting and an important research question. I also believe that EA ideas can be appealing to people far beyond the current demographic of EAs (which I think is strongly influenced by founders effects).
Are you able to share the details of your SEGS scale? I think the details of the scale would be interesting. I can see that you have a high correlation between Empathy and SEGS. In particular I am wondering what the chances that generally altruistic people are choosing the high SEGS answers because they look like the most empathetic answers, even if the person isn’t particularly effective in general with their altruism—you may have found a way to feather this out.
And also I can’t seem to click the links to the EQ and CRT scales etc in your pdf—that might just be me, but a list of links would be great!
Thanks for this. The SEGS consisted of seven items on a 7-point Likert agree/disagree scale: (1) I am interested in Effective Altruism, (2) I would like to learn more about Effective Altruism, (3) I support the Effective Altruism movement, (4), I would share information about Effective Altruism with people in my network, (5) I identify as an “effective altruist,” (6) I would like to meet others who support Effective Altruism, and (7) I will donate my money based on Effective Altruism. We also measured a few more-behavioral outcomes e.g., a windfall donation task (in which participants allocated money between Deworm the World, Make a Wish, a local choir, and keeping it for themselves), and willingness to sign the GWWC pledge. For the SEGS x Empathy relationship, we controlled for past giving behavior to try to feather that out.
Ah yes, the links to the scales don’t appear to work in the PDF, here are open-access versions:
Thanks Ari for your post. This is very interesting and an important research question. I also believe that EA ideas can be appealing to people far beyond the current demographic of EAs (which I think is strongly influenced by founders effects).
Are you able to share the details of your SEGS scale? I think the details of the scale would be interesting. I can see that you have a high correlation between Empathy and SEGS. In particular I am wondering what the chances that generally altruistic people are choosing the high SEGS answers because they look like the most empathetic answers, even if the person isn’t particularly effective in general with their altruism—you may have found a way to feather this out.
And also I can’t seem to click the links to the EQ and CRT scales etc in your pdf—that might just be me, but a list of links would be great!
Thanks for this. The SEGS consisted of seven items on a 7-point Likert agree/disagree scale: (1) I am interested in Effective Altruism, (2) I would like to learn more about Effective Altruism, (3) I support the Effective Altruism movement, (4), I would share information about Effective Altruism with people in my network, (5) I identify as an “effective altruist,” (6) I would like to meet others who support Effective Altruism, and (7) I will donate my money based on Effective Altruism. We also measured a few more-behavioral outcomes e.g., a windfall donation task (in which participants allocated money between Deworm the World, Make a Wish, a local choir, and keeping it for themselves), and willingness to sign the GWWC pledge. For the SEGS x Empathy relationship, we controlled for past giving behavior to try to feather that out.
Ah yes, the links to the scales don’t appear to work in the PDF, here are open-access versions:
EQ: http://docs.autismresearchcentre.com/papers/2004_Lawrence_etal_MeasuringEmpathy.pdf
IRI: http://fetzer.org/sites/default/files/images/stories/pdf/selfmeasures/EMPATHY-InterpersonalReactivityIndex.pdf
MFQ-20: http://www.moralfoundations.org/questionnaires
TIPI: https://gosling.psy.utexas.edu/scales-weve-developed/ten-item-personality-measure-tipi/
MS-S: http://journal.sjdm.org/16/16129b/jdm16129b.pdf
CRT: http://journal.sjdm.org/15/151029/jdm151029.pdf