Rich people give more to charity when you make them feel powerful

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APPEALING to wealthy people’s sense of personal power rather than their community spirit seems to encourage them to give more money to charity.

Psychologists already knew that rich people value their individual ability to control events more than lower-income earners do, says Ashley Whillans at Harvard University.

Appealing to this independent mindset encouraged wealthy people to donate more money to a charity aimed at ending poverty, found Whillans and her colleagues. That work was published in 2017.

The team has now tested whether fundraising appeals framed in this way increased the generosity of wealthy graduates of …