Older people donate more to strangers than younger adults, even when such generosity is unlikely to be reciprocated, a recent study has found.
The study, conducted by a team from the National University of Singapore (NUS), showed that both younger and older adults are equally generous to people who are close to them, such as family members or close friends.
However, senior citizens are more generous to those who were more socially distant, such as complete strangers.
Their level of generosity does not decrease with social distance as quickly as that of the younger adults. The elderly are also more likely to forgo their resources to strangers even when their generosity is unlikely to be reciprocated.
Generosity was measured by calculating the amount of money that the participants were willing to give to another person, based on how close the participants were to them.
The study was conducted from March 2016 to January 2017. It involved 78 adults in Singapore. Half of them were older adults with an average age of 70, while the other half were about 23 years old on average.
The findings of the study were published online in Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences on April 5.
Assistant Professor Yu Rongjun, who led the study, said that greater generosity was possibly observed among senior citizens because as people become older, "their values shift away from purely personal interests to more enduring sources of meaning found in their communities".
He added that the findings provide an understanding of why the elderly are more inclined to lend a helping hand to strangers.
"Providing older adults with more opportunities to help others is not only beneficial to our society, but it might also be a boon to the well-being of older adults themselves," said Assistant Professor Yu, who is from the psychology department at NUS. "Future studies with direct well-being measures should further examine this hypothesis."
That's because they stupid, that they anyhow give money to strangers.
That is why the government keep the CPF until 65, and never one shot give them, but instead every month give them a little bit. Because if we give them everything at 65, they will tend to spend everything within a few months, and there goes their savings.
Remember "sunshine empire" (阳光大地)? A lot of elderly give away their money to some unknown people who promise them huge amounts of profits. In the end, the sunshine empire collapse, and ran away, and all the elderly who invested in them lost all their savings.
The elderly people need a lot of help, by trustworthy people, to safeguard their money. Unfortunately, at this time and age, the only people we can trust is the local banks, like POSB and DBS, because these are government-backed corporations, and the government is accountable to the people.
Originally posted by gekpohboy:
Remember "sunshine empire" (阳光大地)? A lot of elderly give away their money to some unknown people who promise them huge amounts of profits. In the end, the sunshine empire collapse, and ran away, and all the elderly who invested in them lost all their savings.
james phang
jackie hoo[ https://www.facebook.com/aki.hoo?ref=br_rs ]
thats because scammers are cocks who should never exist on this earth in the first place. if everyone was a good person the world would be a better place @gekpohboy
if those scamming cocksters didnt exist, the old people wouldn't lost money. they did bad things
Sigh, the reason why older people donate more than younger people is probably because they still believe that this world has not gone that bad, while young people view this world rather cynically.
Young people are more ego-centric :(
strangers could be young adults
Maybe because the donation method is different now..? Using bank cards instead of cash or a requirement of min $10 donation kind of logic.. Younger people are just trying to be more protective of themselves i guess. And donation is meant to be a simple gesture of compassion and not based on a sum.. sigh.
I would feel doing volunteery work in the orphanage or eldery home is much meaningful then monetary donation ... because at least you know that the work u done at those places wouldn't go to waste...
Donate yr Chi bai lah.
Those old ppl most easy to kena con one. See MLM events always call old ppl to join first. Pyscho them, then can pyscho the whole family.
Best if bring a monk(fake or real dun matter!) & or mi tofu them. They'll be feeding you their family $$ & open up to you like the chinese idol GuanYin open her legs!