Talk:Psychological barriers to effective altruism

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Dear fellow Wikipedian, I am very excited to present this new addition to the current body of knowledge on altruism. The topic is motivated by a rich body of scientific knowledge that has developed and contributed to the idea of ineffective altruism. I am looking forward to gather any feedback, thoughts, comments, or reflections on the topic that could make this new Wikipedia entry as rich and accurate as possible. Glenwspiteri (talk) 21:35, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Psychology 220A

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 2 October 2023 and 15 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Glenwspiteri (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Effblandl (talk) 09:30, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Topic

What is the intended topic of this article? Is it about the phenomenon of altruism falling short of intentions, or is it about the psychology of effective altruism? Either topic seems potentially notable, but the apparent conflation feels problematic. WeyerStudentOfAgrippa (talk) 13:18, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your message! It is about the psychology of effective altruism. More specifically, about how altruism can fall short of effective intentions. It does not relate to effective altruism as a movement, but effective altruism as a normative standard. Glenwspiteri (talk) 18:15, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Can you help suggest how I can address the conflation you have identified? Much appreciated! Glenwspiteri (talk) 03:05, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

@Glenwspiteri: The article appears to be trying to group various flavors of altruism within the negation of effective altruism. Whether an act of altruism is "ineffective" or "sub-optimal" depends on intentions and assumptions. This is potentially a serious example of WP:UNDUE weight. This is in addition to potential issues of WP:SYNTH and redundancy with other articles, such as the evolutionary section of altruism.

For now, the article could be moved back to draft space while the content is revised. WeyerStudentOfAgrippa (talk) 13:47, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

@WeyerStudentOfAgrippa: I support moving this article back to draft space while it is reviewed. It may not be a coincidence that Glenwspiteri wrote at the top of this page, I am very excited to present this new addition to the current body of knowledge on altruism. Of course, per WP:NOR, Wikipedia is not for making new additions to the current body of knowledge. There may be a useful established topic somewhere in this article, but "ineffective altruism" is not the name of that topic. Perhaps Glenwspiteri took the term "ineffective altruism" from the title of the 2021 journal article "The Psychology of (In)Effective Altruism" by Caviola et al. However, the appearance of the term in the title of a journal article does not make it an encyclopedic topic. The encyclopedic topic here would be something like the psychology of giving.

The psychology of giving gifts has been a redirect on Wikipedia since 2004, so that topic was recognized as a candidate article topic early in Wikipedia's history, and Glenwspiteri has provided content here that could serve as a start-class article on such a topic if it is edited.

On the other hand, there are not many articles titled "Psychology of..." on Wikipedia; most such titles are redirects, e.g., Psychology of criticism → Criticism, Psychology of ideology → Ideology, Psychology of planning → Planning, Psychology of risk → Risk, The psychology of giving gifts → Gift. So, following the way that such content is usually organized on Wikipedia, the content in this article may be more appropriate for sections of Altruism, Effective altruism, and Philanthropy. Biogeographist (talk) 15:20, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments! I would appreciate it if you could, concretely, suggest potential ways forward to address your concerns.

If the issue is regarding undue weight to one view: in this article, I attempted to portray a fair representation of the views on the topic of ineffective altruism. Ineffective altruism is not a made up concept; it is a concept that is grounded in highly reputable sources published by highly reputable academics in highly reputable academic journals, such as Nature Human Behavior, and Trends in Cognitive Sciences. To address the potential issues that arise from Wikipedia:UNDUE, I could, for instance, add a criticisms section to the article.

Would that mitigate it?

On the issue of Wikipedia:SYNTH, I see your point on redundancy. However, in the article's defense, there are many other articles on Wikipedia that document different facets of the same concept; for instance cognitive biases. There is an article on Cognitive bias as a concept, but there are equally relevant articles on specific cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias. Having a separate article on each of these concepts, only makes that knowledge more accessible to the general public. There are many facets to altruism, and it can equally come in many forms, and ineffective altruism is one perspective or variation of that. The evolutionary section on ineffective altruism that I originally included is grounded in Burum, Nowak, Hoffman (2020). How would you propose to mitigate this concern?

Based on the comments by @Biogeographist, I think there is an issue with the idea or the name of "ineffective altruism" as a topic. In this article, at no point did I reach a conclusion beyond stating what was already stated in cited reputable sources. My original statement of wanting to present this new addition to the current body of knowledge did not come as a result of me creating the knowledge, but documenting the already available knowledge in academic journals. The concept of ineffective altruism is found in both Caviola et al. (2021) and Burum et al. (2020) (which presented an evolutionary explanation for the concept). I did not come up with it, nor did I synthesize material to reach any conclusions. Thank you for suggesting the name change. The content in this article should, ideally, be standalone because it is a concept in and of itself that is different from the current articles available on Wikipedia. If I were to pursue Psychology of Giving that could make a number of other currently available topics redundant, such as Effective altruism. What do you think?

Thank you both! Glenwspiteri (talk) 20:00, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

@Glenwspiteri: It's interesting that you're so convinced that this is an encyclopedic topic, when at least two experienced editors are unconvinced. I think we need more opinions from other editors.

There is another relevant guideline, WP:NOTABILITY, which says that an article topic should have received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. A secondary source "contains analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources". Burum et al. (2020) is a primary source that reports original experiments. Caviola et al. (2021) is a secondary source. Jaeger & van Vugt (2022) is also a secondary source. So, if we're talking about two secondary sources (review articles), I could slightly rephrase what I said before and it would still be true: discussion of the term ineffective altruism in a couple of review articles does not make it an encyclopedic topic, per WP:NOTABILITY. We would need a lot more evidence that "ineffective altruism" is the right name for this article. So this article's core problem as I now see it is that the topic fails to meet the general notability guidelines due to a lack of coverage of the subject in secondary sources.

Glenwspiteri said: If I were to pursue Psychology of Giving that could make a number of other currently available topics redundant, such as Effective altruism. What do you think? No, it would not make Effective altruism redundant, because effective altruism as defined in that article is a particular "21st-century philosophical and social movement that advocates 'using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis'." The subject of this article, in contrast, is not about a particular philosophical and social movement, but is more generally about "instances where efforts to do good or contribute to a cause do not produce the intended positive impact". Those are two very different topics, but oddly the first "highlight" item in the summary in Caviola et al. (2021) says:

"Effective altruism is a philosophy and social movement that advocates using the most effective, evidence-based strategies to benefit others. Here we focus on charitable giving, a domain in which ordinary people can have a large impact."

That text suggests that the research of Caviola et al. was motivated by the philosophical and social movement.

It would be very helpful to read clearer statements by all of the researchers (cited in this article, such as Caviola et al.) about how they conceive the relationship between their research and the philosophical and social movement called effective altruism. Do they think of their research as a contribution to the philosophical and social movement or as more general and independent of it? If it is more general and independent, then why did they borrow the movement's name, which could lead to confusion?

Also, as I already mentioned above, there are not many articles titled "Psychology of..." on Wikipedia; most such titles are redirects. So, following existing precedent, psychology of giving is not likely to be an appropriate title for the current article, and the best way to move forward, I suspect, is to look at how to integrate the content of this article into articles such as Altruism and Charity (practice). Biogeographist (talk) 21:25, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Regarding synthesis, I would prefer at this stage of revision to focus on a few relevant reliable secondary sources rather than many shallow factual sources. It needs to be clear where the higher-level content is coming from. This could involve, for now, deleting unnecessary references (Darwin? Spiteri?) and potentially adding more references per RSS to clarify where each is being used. I don't have much experience here and welcome the opinions of other editors.

The notion of adding a criticism section seems to be missing the point. The neutrality issue is closely related in this case to the other issues identified. Having an article would imply an encyclopedic consensus about what ineffective altruism "is" and conversely on what kinds of altruism are "ineffective". Additionally, if the term is related to the effective altruism movement, even by way of a normative framework, that could be made clear from the start.

Regarding other articles, I now see that evolutionary explanations for specific types of altruism seem to fall within the scope of evolution of morality and possibly evolutionary ethics, whereas the section in altruism seems to focus on explanations for altruism in general. Other parts of the draft could possibly fall within the scope of descriptive ethics; the editors there might have opinions. WeyerStudentOfAgrippa (talk) 14:16, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Dear both,

Thank you for the above clarification comments. I see your points and I have tried my best to propose ways that could address your concerns. Specifically, I propose making the following changes:

1. Changing the name of the article to "Barriers to effective altruism". I think we might achieve better consensus on this title, instead of "ineffective altruism". It follows the precedent in some economics pages, that include barriers to entry, exit, and pro-environmental behavior. There is a substantial amount of both primary and secondary sources that discuss these barriers, and I think it might be more welcomed.

2. Removing unnecessary sources and clarify the link to effective altruism as both a movement and framework. I propose to do this by making it clear from the outset that the article discusses the reasons why people fail to engage in altruistic acts that maximize the good achieved. So, the failure to engage in effectively altruistic acts. Here, I make reference to primary sources, such as, but not limited to, Jaeger and van Vugt (2022), Berman et al. (2018), Caviola et al. (2021). I also make reference to secondary sources, such as, but not limited to, Richards (2023), Ethical Psychology blog by Gavazzi, EA Forum and Giving what we can.

I would appreciate your thoughts about the proposals above. Based on your further responses, I will implement and make changes. This will probably also include some changes to the current structure.

I hope we can come to a mutually agreed way forward.

Thank you. Glenwspiteri (talk) 15:10, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

@Glenwspiteri: Your proposal 1 presumes that this should be a stand-alone article, and I'm not convinced of that. "Barriers to effective altruism" is essentially the same topic as the existing section "Obstacles to effective giving". This section (with either title), which is around 600 words, would appropriately fit in the article Effective altruism, which currently has a prose size of around 3,900 words, well under the ~9,000-word WP:SIZERULE. I don't see a good reason to WP:SPLIT it out as a separate article. Just add another subsection to "Obstacles to effective giving" that summarizes evolutionary predispositions. (Predispositions, by the way, are only predispositions, and are altered by particular social experiences and acquired beliefs—and the "conformity" predisposition (and perhaps the "status" predisposition as well?) cuts both ways: it can also support effective altruism, a possibility that is quickly passed over in the section titled "Conformity" because it contradicts the emphasis on "ineffectiveness". I myself had written a paragraph about the role of conformity in the article Effective altruism but it was later edited out by another editor who was too focused on reducing the article size.)

Don't be attached to the idea that this should be a stand-alone article just because you created it as such for a university class. It is very routine on Wikipedia to refactor articles (WP:MERGE or WP:SPLIT) when content is decided to fit better elsewhere. And that's exactly what should be done here, it seems to me. Biogeographist (talk) 17:54, 20 December 2023 (UTC) & 18:49, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

I just looked at Barriers to pro-environmental behaviour that Glenwspiteri mentioned above. That article is a good analogue, but an important difference is that there is no Pro-environmental behaviour article, whereas in this case we already have an Effective altruism article in which any relevant content (as I mentioned previously, we're talking about probably less than 1,000 words) could fit insofar as it's relevant to effective altruism. Biogeographist (talk) 18:16, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

It is a presumption because when I originally selected the topic of the article I referred to Wikipedia criteria on Notability. I should mention from the outset that I might come across as being resistant (or challenging your arguments) because given that it was part of a University class, the article had to be approved by an editor to be published in the first place, so even looking beyond the academic literature on the topic, there clearly must be something worthy of a Wikipedia standalone here. To add to that, I referred to the outlined criteria on Wikipedia:Notability, specifically,

A topic is presumed to merit an article if:

1. It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG); and
2. It is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy.

As far as WP:NOTEVERYTHING is concerned, the information presented in this Wikipedia article, does not fall under any of the listed categories.

It meets each of the WP:GNG as follows:

1. Presumed coverage is, I hope evidently demonstrated by the concept being documented in highly reputable academic journals, thus satisfying the reliable sources criterion.
2. Significant coverage is, evidently demonstrated by the discussions on non-EA affiliated portals, such as those that I listed in my previous reply. All of which are secondary sources. In support of this, are the academic references that I have already listed both in my prior message, and in the references section on the original article. Especially given that the Caviola et al. (2021) carries out a review on the topic, makes it even more notable.
3. Reliable because all sources I make reference to and cite are either works published in highly reputable academic journals (some of which are not even open access, thus limiting the right of the general audience to access academic research) or are written by reputable individuals (both EA or non-EA).
4. Secondary sources, I quote There is no fixed number of sources required since sources vary in quality and depth of coverage, but multiple sources are generally expected.. To this, I have listed already multiple unrelated sources in my previous comment, and also in the original references list.
5. Independent of the subject: in my original reference list, I rarely made reference to EA-affiliated sources.

I disagree with having this included with the Effective altruism article because the direction of that article is related to EA as a social movement (based on the recent reviews that were carried out, including those which you @Biogeographist were involved in). This supports the original reason why I wanted to create the article on ineffective altruism, because the idea behind ineffective altruism is not grounded in the movement of effective altruism, but in the idea that there is such a thing as a human motivation to give ineffectively. And once again, there is widespread academic research on this. At every point I should reiterate that I am not making up claims, nor am I making unfounded or unsupported arguments for what I am pushing for; these are all grounded in solid, academic literature published in highly impactful and selective journals.

In response to your point on barriers to pro-environmental behavior, I agree. I should mention, however, that there are articles on both trade barriers and technical barriers to trade. So perhaps the same analogy can be used here. An alternative title could also be barriers to effective giving. Glenwspiteri (talk) 19:20, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Glenwspiteri said: This supports the original reason why I wanted to create the article on ineffective altruism, because the idea behind ineffective altruism is not grounded in the movement of effective altruism, but in the idea that there is such a thing as a human motivation to give ineffectively. Here we need to point out that there are two aspects to effective altruism as stated in the lead section of Effective altruism: a "philosophical and social movement" (previous versions said a "philosophy and social movement"). The concept of "effective" in "ineffective altruism" or "barriers to effective altruism" or "barriers to effective giving" is grounded in the philosophy of effective altruism. I don't see any way of denying that.

But I'm willing to drop my opposition to a stand-alone article, because now I think it probably doesn't matter whether the content is part of Effective altruism or not, and it's probably true that non-notability is not an obstacle. I think you've stated good arguments for notability. The article can always be merged into Effective altruism later if that seems to be best.

Regarding whether the title should be "Barriers to effective giving" or "Barriers to effective altruism": it would seem to depend on whether the barriers apply mainly to donation and related decision making ("Barriers to effective giving") or also to activities like career choice, institution building, and activism ("Barriers to effective altruism"). The barriers seem to me to apply to all activities even though they are framed in the current article in terms of giving, so I would say "Barriers to effective altruism" would be better.

In summary, Glenwspiteri, you've convinced me to support your 2 proposals above. Biogeographist (talk) 20:39, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, you are right on effective altruism being a philosophical movement, I definitely agree and of course do not deny it. Omitting that part on effective altruism was an oversight from my end. My qualification in that sentence related to the significant trimming down of the philosophy section in the present Effective altruism article.

It's great that we have come to an agreement on my proposals! I am very happy that we are on the same page.

I hope @WeyerStudentOfAgrippa can weigh in on our discussion so that I can begin to implement changes. Glenwspiteri (talk) 22:14, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

@Biogeographist: Regarding barriers to pro-environmental behavior from 2019, I note that whether an action is "pro-environmental" has more of a scientific basis than whether an action is motivated by or supports a particular philosophy. Barriers to entry and barriers to exit are about concepts in economics with those names and additionally have cleanup tags. Additionally, there appear to be significantly fewer "barriers to" articles than "psychology of" articles based on quick searching.

@Glenwspiteri: The EA forum is an open forum and is therefore generally not a reliable source. Blogs and websites by individuals or organizations often require attribution in prose and may not count for notability. I'm not sure we're using the same sense of primary and secondary source; for example, I would consider a journal article that presents experimental results as more "primary" and a journal article that mainly discusses other articles as more "secondary" (though many will do both, and it should be clear which part is supporting a specific claim). Improving sourcing seems fine to work on now regardless of whether the draft gets renamed or merged. WeyerStudentOfAgrippa (talk) 13:36, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

WeyerStudentOfAgrippa said: I note that whether an action is "pro-environmental" has more of a scientific basis than whether an action is motivated by or supports a particular philosophy. I'm not so sure about that, but it's a good question. I suspect there is a philosophical (specifically, axiological) aspect to "pro-environmental", and on the other hand effective altruism aspires to scientificity, so the two may be quite comparable if not with an equally well developed scientific basis.

By the way, I haven't looked closely at the factual claims in this article. I checked one source and deleted the sentence to which it was attached because the sentence seemed to make a sweeping claim that wasn't warranted by the studies reported in the source. Please, let's not follow the annoying habit of many social psychologists of stating grandiose conclusions based on trivial experiments. They are the laughingstock of philosophers of science.

WeyerStudentOfAgrippa said: I would consider a journal article that presents experimental results as more "primary" and a journal article that mainly discusses other articles as more "secondary" (though many will do both, and it should be clear which part is supporting a specific claim). I agree with this, and I noticed what Glenwspiteri said about this but failed to respond to it. Biogeographist (talk) 14:10, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, agreed regarding EA Forum. I never included an EA Forum citation in the original article - I retract it from my previous comment.

I agree regarding "Psychology of" titling. I suppose it could be appropriate here. Indeed, it could become part of the "Series in psychology" sphere on wiki.

I am currently implementing changes. I am paying special attention to citation materials as suggested by @WeyerStudentOfAgrippa.

I hope to hear your thoughts on the next iteration of the draft. Hopefully, we can get the article back live soon enough :) Glenwspiteri (talk) 22:49, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Proposing revised article

I summarize the points of concern put forward by @WeyerStudentOfAgrippa and @Biogeographist, and my responses as follows:

1. There seemed to be confusion regarding the title of the article. For instance, @WeyerStudentOfAgrippa stated What is the intended topic of this article? Is it about the phenomenon of altruism falling short of intentions, or is it about the psychology of effective altruism? Either topic seems potentially notable, but the apparent conflation feels problematic. Similarly, @Biogeographist claimed The encyclopedic topic here would be something like the psychology of giving.

To address these concerns, I propose retitling the present article to Psychology of effective altruism. In spite of substantial scientific evidence backing the term ineffective altruism, at this point of development of the literature, and to reach a consensus, I am fine with this new title.

2. There were doubts regarding whether there is sufficient content to merit for a standalone article. Specifically, @Biogeographist stated that So this article's core problem as I now see it is that the topic fails to meet the general notability guidelines due to a lack of coverage of the subject in secondary sources. In addition, @Biogeographist stated that Your proposal 1 presumes that this should be a stand-alone article, and I'm not convinced of that. This was resolved as explained in my subsequent reply (shortened here in the interest of space) It is a presumption because when I originally selected the topic of the article I referred to Wikipedia criteria on Notability. To which @Biogeographist replied I'm willing to drop my opposition to a stand-alone article, because now I think it probably doesn't matter whether the content is part of Effective altruism or not, and it's probably true that non-notability is not an obstacle. I think you've stated good arguments for notability.

This concern has been addressed in the previous topic on this talk page.

3. There were concerns about the sourcing of material. Specifically, @WeyerStudentOfAgrippa said I would prefer at this stage of revision to focus on a few relevant reliable secondary sources rather than many shallow factual sources. It needs to be clear where the higher-level content is coming from. and that a good way forward is Improving sourcing seems fine to work on now regardless of whether the draft gets renamed or merged.

To address these concerns, I have opted for primary sources that use experimental results to attribute causality to claims. I still make reference to secondary sources (such as reviews) to lend further support for a fact that has been refined in the review.

I hope that we can come to an agreement and put the article back where it belongs :) Glenwspiteri (talk) 00:27, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

User:Glenwspiteri said: "I hope that we can come to an agreement and put the article back where it belongs :)"

There do appear to be several strong sources for psychology of effective altruism content, Caviola et al. (2021) being the most obvious. However, the dozens of other sources still need to be verified and reviewed for synthesis. I'm confused as to why you just added more.

User:Glenwspiteri said: "To address these concerns, I have opted for primary sources that use experimental results to attribute causality to claims. I still make reference to secondary sources (such as reviews) to lend further support for a fact that has been refined in the review."

To be clear, experimental sources are weaker here. They put the burden of contextualization and evaluation on editors and readers rather than known specialists. Per WP:SECONDARY, Wikipedia articles usually and sometimes necessarily use reliable secondary sources. WeyerStudentOfAgrippa (talk) 13:45, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

WeyerStudentOfAgrippa said: To be clear, experimental sources are weaker here. They put the burden of contextualization and evaluation on editors and readers rather than known specialists. Per WP:SECONDARY, Wikipedia articles usually and sometimes necessarily use reliable secondary sources. This is very important, and Glenwspiteri doesn't seem to understand it yet, due to inexperience in writing for Wikipedia.

As the article currently stands, "Barriers to effective altruism" better summarizes the content than "Psychology of effective altruism". The latter topic would include all the factors that facilitate effective altruism and not just prevent it. The current article only discusses the latter. Biogeographist (talk) 17:04, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Glenwspiteri said: In spite of substantial scientific evidence backing the term ineffective altruism: The choice of term is not an issue of scientific evidence; it's a matter of analyzing what the topic of this article is—that is why WeyerStudentOfAgrippa started the preceding talk page section #Topic! Biogeographist (talk) 17:25, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Respectfully, has either of you actually gone through the sources I cited? It's easy to dismiss a source at face value without diving deep into it, especially when some of them are not open access and only have abstracts or selective information made public. (In case there is a policy on open access in place that I am unaware of, please let me know.)

To add to this, as @WeyerStudentOfAgrippa quotes, I said the following: To address these concerns, I have opted for primary sources that use experimental results to attribute causality to claims. I still make reference to secondary sources (such as reviews) to lend further support for a fact that has been refined in the review. however @WeyerStudentOfAgrippa only refers to the first sentence in my comment. The second sentence completely changes the point I make in the first sentence.

I refer to Wikipedia:SECONDARY, specifically, where it is said that the: Policy: Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources. Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if it has been published by a reliable secondary source.. This is precisely what I say that I do in the second sentence of my comment. Furthermore, I think you are both forgetting a crucially important detail in academic articles, that is, they all have a literature review section. So citing an academic paper that conducts experiments to attribute causality to its arguments, can be treated as a primary source. However, and this is an important qualifier, academic papers include literature reviews - which are in themselves secondary sources. As is commonplace in academia, researchers go through the literature, find a gap, and address that gap using appropriate methods. Then make conclusions. The process of going through a journal editorial review, peer review by experts lends further credibility to the arguments made in that article, otherwise it will never get published in the first place; especially with very rigorous academic journals such as the ones I make reference to here. Simply because an article's conclusions may come across as new or novel, should not imply that they are not reliable enough.

It would be great if we could try to achieve some degree of consensus. I am trying to find middle-grounds, including with, for instance, the re-titling. I referred, in fact, to @WeyerStudentOfAgrippa's first comment in this talk page, and considered all subsequent points by both @Biogeographist and @WeyerStudentOfAgrippa. I'm doing my part as best I can to offering concrete solutions, I would really appreciate it if you could offer concrete ways forward. Glenwspiteri (talk) 17:28, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

@Ira Leviton could you kindly weigh in on this discussion? Glenwspiteri (talk) 17:41, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I think this page could be moved back into mainspace with the title Barriers to effective altruism, even though the content needs further review. I'd like to know what WeyerStudentOfAgrippa thinks about that. I've already said that I've come around to the idea of it being a stand-alone article. I don't think that "Ineffective altruism" is a good title because it's not a widely used term and not as descriptive as "Barriers to effective altruism".

Glenwspiteri asked: Respectfully, has either of you actually gone through the sources I cited? I have reviewed the sources that I have cited or mentioned in this talk page discussion; I have not read every source currently cited in the article. So I know, for example, that it's certainly not true, as Glenwspiteri claimed above, that academic articles all have a literature review section. Burum et al. (2020) does not have a literature review section. It's a good example of a primary source, as I already said. Furthermore, Burum et al. (2020) does not discuss the meaning of the term ineffective altruism, indeed it does not even mention the term in the article, only in the title—and titles of academic articles often use arbitrary clever phrases to catch people's attention—so Burum et al. (2020) is not a secondary source that explains what ineffective altruism is, and does not serve as justification that "ineffective altruism" should be the title of this article. It's about as far from a relevant secondary source as could be. As for: Simply because an article's conclusions may come across as new or novel, should not imply that they are not reliable enough. Nobody claimed that here.

I just looked at Pummer's book The Rules of Rescue that Glenwspiteri added in a recent edit. Pummer uses the term ineffective altruism on a couple of pages. Ironically, Pummer's discussion shows how slippery and context-relative the term ineffective altruism is; he wrote:

"These arguments have the further implication that, even when an instance of ineffective altruism is wrong and to some extent blameworthy, it can nonetheless be more praiseworthy overall than a non-altruistic alternative that is permissible and blameless. ... When it comes to your responses to the wrong yet overall praiseworthy ineffective altruism of others, these matters are arguably more delicate still. ... But suppose that you are an effective altruist using 10 percent of your time and money helping maximally cost-effectively and I am an ineffective altruist using 60 percent of my time and money helping half as cost-effectively, thereby providing three times as much help as you. Suppose, however, that I do not have a sufficiently strong permitting reason to do this rather than use my 60 percent maximally cost-effectively, so that I provide six times as much help as you. ..."

The "delicate" context-relativity of effectiveness, even for people who accept the EA definition of effectiveness (and how much more so for people who don't accept it!), may be why Pummer himself uses the term ineffective altruism only on two pages of his book.

I noticed that on another talk page, Glenwspiteri complained about something I said above without discussing it with me first. They said:

Each time, I propose concrete solutions and ways forward that reach a degree of middle-ground. Each time, they shoot my solutions down and refrain from reaching a consensus. At one particular point, one of them even attacked my field by saying "Please, let's not follow the annoying habit of many social psychologists of stating grandiose conclusions based on trivial experiments. They are the laughingstock of philosophers of science.", which I find very offensive, given that I am a researcher in the field of social psychology. Could you intervene and please help me out? I feel like I am fighting an unjustified battle.

First, I'm sorry you feel that you're fighting an unjustified battle. We're all doing the best we can here. Please don't feel that I don't appreciate the work you've done. I will mention this page on relevant WikiProject talk pages and try to get other editors involved. Second, I'm sorry that you were offended by what I said, but you were offended because you misinterpreted what I said and didn't check your interpretation with me. I didn't know you are a social psychologist, but I wasn't "attacking your field" or you, I was repeating criticism, by philosophers of science, of much research in your field. (I was thinking of comments by Imre Lakatos in The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes (1978)—look up "social psychology" in the index—and by Deborah Mayo—for example, see this 2015 blog post—but social psychologists do not have a monopoly on the problem of "unwarranted, overgeneralized conclusions"—for example, see Peters et al. 2022. I could probably find other references too if I searched my files.) Whether you want to be one of the offenders or not is your choice; the more you learn about the problem of bad generalizations, the less likely you are to become an offender. Biogeographist (talk) 20:09, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

If you read through Burum et al. (2020) carefully you will notice that the first section is the literature review. Yes, it is also commonplace to have literature reviews in the introduction to the article. I should have spelled it out in my earlier comment.

Great and the two of us (@Biogeographist) agree on the re-titling to barriers to..., however, @WeyerStudentOfAgrippa highlighted some reservations on the use of barriers to effective altruism as an article title. Thus why I reverted to Psychology of... given that @WeyerStudentOfAgrippa had initially proposed this as a title in his initial comment on the Topic, as well as your suggestion to use the encyclopedic topic here would be something like the psychology of giving.. Based on these two comments, the resolution, in my view, was to propose Psychology of effective altruism; this is what best aligns with the spirit of WP:CONS. In response to this, you (@Biogeographist) decided to retitle the article to barriers... without maintaining the spirit of WP:CONS.

Regarding your offensive comment, you did not simply express reservations about the field, which I am well-aware of, and there is a whole collection of literature on a) the practicality crisis in social psychology and b) the replication crisis in wider psychology. However, your statement was neither founded on scientific arguments, nor was it constructive. You called social psychologists the laughingstock of philosophers of science; in what universe is that evidence-based criticism?

It is normal for editors to disagree, as I am sure given your experience on Wikipedia, have come to very well know; but disagreements should, in general, be done in good faith. And, as much as possible, backed by science. As I said in my previous comments, I was very happy to hear your inputs on content decisions that truly warranted changes, and I am glad that we've been engaging in some form of a discussion here, but in the spirit of the truth, we need to reach consensus and move forward. It's easy to criticize and shoot things down, but not equally easy to propose concrete solutions and ways forward. Which is why I invited @Ira Leviton (whose experience on Wikipedia is undisputed) to help us out. GSych (talk) 21:54, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

The introduction to Burum et al. (2020) gives just enough background to present their research—a mini literature review perhaps—but that doesn't make their article a secondary source.

Glenwspiteri said: WeyerStudentOfAgrippa highlighted some reservations on the use of barriers to effective altruism as an article title. But I responded and said why those reservations shouldn't concern us. You (@Biogeographist) decided to retitle the article to barriers... without maintaining the spirit of WP:CONS. In my view, there was no consensus for "Psychology of effective altruism", so either there is no consensus for anything or "Barriers to effective altruism" is the new consensus. We'll see what happens.

disagreements should, in general, be done in good faith. And, as much as possible, backed by science. I've been acting in good faith, but if you're implying that someone is not acting in good faith, perhaps you're referring to someone else. And when it comes to effective altruism, science is not enough; there are also big philosophical issues involved. I'm not sure that Ira Leviton will have much to say here: he was editing more as a WP:WikiGnome than as a content contributor.

You called social psychologists "the laughingstock of philosophers of science"; in what universe is that evidence-based criticism? No, you're repeating your misinterpretation. I said: "Please, let's not follow the annoying habit of many social psychologists of stating grandiose conclusions based on trivial experiments. They are the laughingstock of philosophers of science." The "They" in "They are the laughingstock of philosophers of science" refers to "grandiose conclusions based on trivial experiments" not to "many social psychologists" (except perhaps at the moment when they are making "grandiose conclusions based on trivial experiments") and not to "all social psychologists". And what I said was in the context of a sentence I removed that I considered to be a poor generalization of the findings in the cited source, which reminded me of how philosophers of science have criticized the same thing in much social psychology. I stand behind what I said, and I would be surprised if you didn't agree with my general point even if you disagreed with my assessment of the sentence in question. Biogeographist (talk) 22:36, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

User:Biogeographist said: "I think this page could be moved back into mainspace with the title Barriers to effective altruism, even though the content needs further review. I'd like to know what WeyerStudentOfAgrippa thinks about that."

With multiple journal articles discussing "obstacles", "impediments", or "barriers" to effective altruism, the title barriers to effective altruism seems acceptable. However, I am not convinced that it would be better than psychology of effective altruism if traits supporting EA can be described in the same article, in line with other "psychology of" articles.

I have not identified major sourcing issues in the current draft, though I agree the content needs further review to check for issues. WeyerStudentOfAgrippa (talk) 14:52, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

I posted more requests for peer review at WT:WikiProject Effective Altruism & WT:WikiProject Psychology. Biogeographist (talk) 20:22, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! That's a great idea. GSych (talk) 21:57, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Proposed new title: Psychological barriers to effective altruism

@Glenwspiteri and WeyerStudentOfAgrippa: What do you think about the title "Psychological barriers to effective altruism", same as the title of the article by Jaeger & van Vugt? My concern about the title "Psychology of effective altruism", as I said, is that the article doesn't cover the factors that facilitate or support EA that I would expect in an article with such a title, and WeyerStudentOfAgrippa seemed to share that concern. The most precise and informative title for the article's current topic may be the same as the title of the article by Jaeger & van Vugt: "Psychological barriers to effective altruism".

If we agree, we could move the article back to mainspace with that title and do further review in mainspace.

I added a related section to Effective altruism: Effective altruism § Psychological research. This article will be the main article for that section. (The section could be renamed "Psychological barriers".) Biogeographist (talk) 16:08, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

@Biogeographist: I did some quick searching and failed to find comparable sources for traits associated with effective altruism, but that's not a problem with the draft content. The title psychological barriers to effective altruism seems accurate. I suggested the draft move based on issues that have been addressed, so let's move to main space. WeyerStudentOfAgrippa (talk) 14:51, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

 Done: We haven't yet heard back from Glenwspiteri about this title, but they seem unlikely to oppose a move back to mainspace. Further review can continue in mainspace. Biogeographist (talk) 03:52, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree with this title, and happy to see it back in mainspace! GSych (talk) 15:39, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

References

Informed disagreement

I believe the article should mention informed disagreement on what constitutes effective altruism. Specifically, some who consider themselves "effective altruists" advocate acting to enable the creation, in the remote future and with admittedly low probability, of trillions of happy humans. Others consider such a goal absurd, and less worthy of charity than anything currently mentioned in the article. This is not a matter of ignorance or thoughtlessness, it's a genuine disageement. Maproom (talk) 08:50, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks; philosophical disagreements, but not longtermism in particular, have been on my mind as I've been thinking about this article. As I said above on this talk page, there are big philosophical issues to consider when addressing this topic. I'll have to reread the relevant psychological sources while keeping longtermism debates in mind. By the way, longtermism is not necessarily incompatible with conventional charitable giving if it turns out that the best way to ensure the wellbeing of future humans is to improve the wellbeing of current living humans. Longtermism as an ethical view can be differentiated from any particular practical project inspired by it, such as trying to reduce global catastrophic risk. Biogeographist (talk) 18:54, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

interesting - can you give a source? thanks Asto77 (talk) 10:25, 2 January 2024 (UTC)