Commentary: Greater Emotional Gain from Giving in Older Adults: Age-Related Positivity Bias in Charitable Giving

摘要

Despite the fact that the population of is rapidly aging (Ortman et al., 2014), until recently scholars of charity have largely ignored older adults. Bjalkebring et al. (2016) begin addressing this gap in the literature. By showing that increasing age is associated with stronger feelings of sympathy and compassion and that older adults are more likely to report feeling positive emotions when making donations, Bjalkebring et al. (2016) connect the literature on age-related positivity biases to the literature on philanthropy. We endorse this approach of identifying ways in which older populations differ from younger populations and exploring how those differences might inform donation behavior. Indeed, this tactic has the potential to reveal a large number of age-related differences in giving beyond those based on an age-related positivity bias.