Tainted Altruism 1 variety of scenarios,both real and hypothetical,and In any case,the present experiments identify impo extended to evaluations of the target as well as partici- tant conditions surrounding the evaluation of charitable pantsown behavior intentions Moreover,this behavio of and that in some cases,public asses may trump any by the presence of deception,or by the explicit use of charity as a means to an end.Rather,this effect seems to Author Contributions be importanty related to the access G.E.Newman developed the study concept.Both authors cor meone ther tributed to the study design.Testing.data colection and data might have engaged in the same charitable behavior drafted the manuscrint and D M.Cain provided critical rv e.Ho Declaration of Conflicting Interests The authors declared that they had no conficts of interest with Although we have identified the basic effect several respect to their authorship or the publication of this article. interesting questions remain for future research.Fo Supplemental Material be found at http://ps Experiments 3 and 4 support this idea.However,the of a person to act as altruisti References ne xplanation might have to do with the desire to Ariely.D..Bracha.A&Meier.s.(20)Doingo oin predict other people's likelihood of being generous in the ne or American Economic Review,99.544-555 future.For example,people might place ea premium on Mls,J(1979 it is highly pre y37.12- The diff etween com heliefs that are more culturally specific (e identification with prototypes such as the "saintly do-gooder.Or per im19.684-69 haps there is a more fundamental psychological principle &Dunning.D.(2011 No go vork.For exa recent dlies have found ple 两o场2m25ma Tetlock.2012).that people are likely to question the motives of wealthy philanthropists (Critcher&Dunning ity:Framework for a unified theory of social relations. that ge the domain of relationships personal connection to the cause are given less credit for Goffman.E.(19).The presentation of self in everyday life. their good works (Lin-Healy Small,2012).Perhaps all of phenomena (indlu ng the tai nted-altruisn Hey Garden cy NY:Double A tale of om th 1 Hsee 2004).us social behavior. c pandas,anc From an applied perspective,one might wonder about Kristo mber 24 The the types of framings that may attenuate or reverse this hut the :h in mind-set that lead pe Lin- F., (2012 ple to focus more on the actual charitable gains (e.g.Hsee Rotter eich.2004)may also reduce or potentially reverse this effect 117,269-274Tainted Altruism 7 variety of scenarios, both real and hypothetical, and extended to evaluations of the target as well as partici￾pants’ own behavioral intentions. Moreover, this effect did not seem to be driven by expectations that profits would be realized at the direct cost of charitable benefits, by the presence of deception, or by the explicit use of charity as a means to an end. Rather, this effect seems to be importantly related to the accessibility of different counterfactuals: When someone is charitable for self￾interested reasons, people consider whether the agent might have engaged in the same charitable behavior without serving self-interest, ultimately concluding that the person did not behave as altruistically as he or she could have. However, when someone is purely selfish, people do not spontaneously consider whether the per￾son could have been more altruistic. Although we have identified the basic effect, several interesting questions remain for future research. For example, why does this asymmetry in counterfactual thinking exist? We suggest that it is due in part to the accessibility of different kinds of information. Indeed, Experiments 3 and 4 support this idea. However, the question still remains: Why is the “failure” of a person to act as altruistically as he or she could have interpreted negatively? One explanation might have to do with the desire to predict other people’s likelihood of being generous in the future. For example, people might place a premium on genuine altruism because it is highly predictive of future behavior. Alternatively, these effects might result from beliefs that are more culturally specific (e.g., identification with prototypes such as the “saintly do-gooder”). Or per￾haps there is a more fundamental psychological principle at work. For example, recent studies have found that peo￾ple react negatively toward religious and health-oriented organizations that seek profit (McGraw, Schwartz, & Tetlock, 2012), that people are likely to question the motives of wealthy philanthropists (Critcher & Dunning, 2011), that people seem to expect that genuine prosocial behavior precludes even unrelated personal benefits (Lin￾Healy & Small, 2013), and that charitable donors with a personal connection to the cause are given less credit for their good works (Lin-Healy & Small, 2012). Perhaps all of these phenomena (including the tainted-altruism effect) result from the same underlying mechanism having to do with the negative evaluation of self-interest alongside pro￾social behavior. From an applied perspective, one might wonder about the types of framings that may attenuate or reverse this bias. Presenting counterfactual information seems to be one, but there may be many others. For example, changes in mind-set that lead people to focus more on the actual charitable gains (e.g., Hsee & Rottenstreich, 2004) may also reduce or potentially reverse this effect. In any case, the present experiments identify impor￾tant conditions surrounding the evaluation of charitable behavior and suggest that in some cases, public assess￾ments of charitable actions as genuine may trump any actual benefits realized from those efforts. Author Contributions G. E. Newman developed the study concept. Both authors con￾tributed to the study design. Testing, data collection, and data analysis were performed by G. E. Newman. G. E. Newman drafted the manuscript, and D. M. Cain provided critical revi￾sions. Both authors approved the final version of the manu￾script for submission. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with respect to their authorship or the publication of this article. 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