‘doing good better’ calls to mind comparisons to the reader’s typical ideas about doing good. It implicitly criticizes those examples, which is a negative experience for the reader and could cause defensiveness.
‘Do the most good’ makes the reader attempt to imagine what that could be, which is a positive and interesting question, and doesn’t immediately challenge the reader’s typical ideas about doing good.
It wouldn’t have been obvious to me before the fact whether the above stuff wouldn’t be outweighed by worries about reactions to ‘the most good’ or what have you, so I appreciate you gathering empirical evidence here.
Thanks for this. Post-hoc theorizing:
‘doing good better’ calls to mind comparisons to the reader’s typical ideas about doing good. It implicitly criticizes those examples, which is a negative experience for the reader and could cause defensiveness.
‘Do the most good’ makes the reader attempt to imagine what that could be, which is a positive and interesting question, and doesn’t immediately challenge the reader’s typical ideas about doing good.
It wouldn’t have been obvious to me before the fact whether the above stuff wouldn’t be outweighed by worries about reactions to ‘the most good’ or what have you, so I appreciate you gathering empirical evidence here.