Altruism: What’s in it for me?

Date: 17th March 2022 Time: 15:30 Location: Blackbox, Esplanade building, Tilburg University

Sacrificing some of your privileges for the benefit of others without expecting anything in return is what we call altruism and is often linked to volunteer work. What exactly motivates volunteers to work for free? To what extent is volunteering a selfless and altruistic act? Let’s find out during this symposium. (English / SG-Certificate*)

Time: 15:30-17:30 hrs.

Admission is free, registration required

Various views on altruism and volunteering

During this symposium we will explore the topic of altruism and its connection to volunteering from three different academic perspectives: Management, Philosophy and Psychology. After each short lecture there will be time to ask questions. By providing thought-provoking questions and statements, we also give the floor to student organizations Serve the City Tilburg, Rode Kruis Studentendesk Tilburg, Fractie SAM and Via Fidei to discuss their experiences of volunteering and altruistic acts with each other and the audience. This interactive symposium will be moderated by Hans van Dijk, co-founder of Serve the City Tilburg.

Program

15:30 Welcome and opening by Hans van Dijk

15:35 Creating value through volunteering by Philine van Overbeeke (Management)

Are you a member of a field hockey club, a student association, or a political party? At some point, you were probably asked to give back, for example, by refereeing a junior game, tending the bar for a few nights, or campaigning for your party. Did you realize that that was actually volunteering? The Netherlands is a true volunteer country: almost 50% of individuals older than 15 donate their time at least once a year as a volunteer. On average, these volunteers spend about four hours a week at their volunteer job. Is it four hours of pure altruism or are there other motivations for volunteering? What types of value do we create when volunteering and, perhaps more importantly, for whom? Let’s discuss it during this lecture.

16:00 Doing altruism better? by Willem van der Deijl-Kloeg (Philosophy)

Suppose someone knocks on your door and asks for a donation to the Heart Fund: a fund aimed at funding research on cardiovascular diseases. The intuitive answer is that it is always better to give. But you can wonder if deciding to donate in this way is a good way to make altruistic decisions. After all, it is a coincidence that the person at your door is coming for the Heart fund, rather than the Liver Fund or the Malaria Foundation. Because donating is almost always a morally good thing to do, we tend to avoid these questions. However, this results in a disproportional number of donations targeted at those funds that tend to collect on our doorsteps, which tend to be for funds for diseases that we suffer from in wealthy countries. Willem will argue that there are better ways to make decisions about our altruistic behavior and he will explain that even though he is a heart patient himself, he thinks it is better to donate to the Malaria Foundation.

16:25 Short break

16:35 The psychology of altruism by Willem Sleegers (Psychology)

People frequently display acts of great kindness. They volunteer to help out in local communities, they donate money to strangers, and sometimes even risk their lives to protect others. While these behaviors are often understood to simply be the result of people’s desire to do good, Willem will take an evolutionary perspective and explain the fundamental motives that are the cause for people’s altruistic acts. He will talk about how parochialism, status, and conformity are important drives that push people to do good, and why it is good for them to do good. Although it is perhaps uncomfortable to explain altruistic behavior in terms of selfish reasons, he will explain that it ultimately helps us to better understand not only why people do good, but also how to get them to do more good.

17:00 Interactive discussion session with student organizations & audience

17:30 End

Speakers

Philine S.M. van Overbeeke (she/her)
Business-Society Management Researcher at Erasmus University

Philine van Overbeeke is a researcher, lecturer, and part-time PhD candidate at the Rotterdam School of Management. Her research focuses on the value of volunteers with a special interest in volunteer inclusion, third-party volunteering and learning through volunteering.
Willem van der Deijl-Kloeg
Assistant Professor of (Business) Ethics at Tilburg University

Willem van der Deijl-Kloeg obtained his PhD in Philosophy and Economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam and now teaches Philosophy at Tilburg University. His research focuses on the concept of wellbeing in economics and ethics and the idea that wellbeing describes how good lives are for the individuals living them. He also looks into the questions of whether economists can measure wellbeing and what role it should it play in our public and private choices, also when it comes to altruistic acts.

Willem Sleegers
Senior Behavioral Scientist at Rethink Priorities

Willem Sleegers was Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at Tilburg University and is now a researcher for Rethink Priorities, a non-profit organization that conducts research on how to best help people and other animals. His research focuses on the topic of effective altruism, with a specific focus on the welfare of wild animals. He obtained his PhD at Tilburg University.
Hans van Dijk
Associate Professor Organization Development at Tilburg University

Hans van Dijk teaches Organization Development at Tilburg University. His research focuses on the topics of diversity and inclusion, more specifically on how minorities are often disadvantaged in many different organizational arenas. Other research interest include determining how organizations can reap the benefits of diversity. He is also one of the co-founders of Serve the City Tilburg.