Thanks, Stephen, we agree! (I work with Oliver on this.) An important distinction to make, though, is between the proximate motivation and the ultimate design of the psychology involved in that motivation. For example, most people would agree that it is intuitively obvious that if someone buys bed nets for an anonymous person on the other side of the world who will never know their name, there could be no (proximate) motivation to make a relationship with that person. But, there is a mountain of research supporting the theory that the psychology involved does indeed have that (ultimate) design, and that matters for the specific details of whether particular interventions/treatments are effective or not. In the case of anonymity, the psychology involved appears designed to be extremely reluctant to construe a situation as truly anonymous, even when people would say explicitly that they know they are anonymous.
Thanks, Stephen, we agree! (I work with Oliver on this.) An important distinction to make, though, is between the proximate motivation and the ultimate design of the psychology involved in that motivation. For example, most people would agree that it is intuitively obvious that if someone buys bed nets for an anonymous person on the other side of the world who will never know their name, there could be no (proximate) motivation to make a relationship with that person. But, there is a mountain of research supporting the theory that the psychology involved does indeed have that (ultimate) design, and that matters for the specific details of whether particular interventions/treatments are effective or not. In the case of anonymity, the psychology involved appears designed to be extremely reluctant to construe a situation as truly anonymous, even when people would say explicitly that they know they are anonymous.
See, for example: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/epl/files/krasnow2019_article_theimportanceofbeinghonestevid.pdf
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/epl/files/psychological_science-2016-krasnow-etal.pdf
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/epl/files/scientificreports_krasnowdeltontoobycosmides2013.pdf
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/epl/publications/evolution-direct-reciprocity-under-uncertainty-can-explain-human-generosity-one-0