Southeastern Oklahoma State University



An Uncomfortable Truth: Helping Others Sometimes Hurts ThemC. W. Von Bergen & Martin S. BresslerSoutheastern Oklahoma State UniversityAbstractDespite recent calls for increased levels of helping the needy and underprivileged, benevolence in the form of aid, favors, or other pro-social behaviors may have downsides and adaptive costs that come with very real losses that are frequently overlooked. This is often due to kindness which, over time, frequently results in aid recipients’ entitlement and dependency that often worsen the very concerns that were meant to be alleviated by the assistance provided in the first place. Thus, it is important not to allow peoples’ honorable intentions in helping others blind individuals to the fact that real injury may be done—not the good envisioned. Examples of the corrosive effects of help are discussed in a variety of fields. Having “skin in the game” and providing autonomy-oriented help as practiced by Habitat for Humanity is offered as a possible antidote to these destructive effects.An Uncomfortable Truth: Helping Others Sometimes Hurts ThemA boy spent hours watching a caterpillar struggling to emerge from its cocoon.It managed to make a small hole, but its body was too large to get through. After a long struggle, it appeared to be exhausted and remained absolutely still. The boy decided to help the caterpillar and with a pair of scissors he cut open the cocoon, thus releasing it. The caterpillar fell to the ground but its body was very small and wrinkled and its wings were all crumpled. The boy continued to watch hoping that at any moment it would open its wings and fly away. But nothing happened; in fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its very brief life dragging around its shrunken body and shriveled wings, incapable of flight.—Adapted from Bliss and Burgess (2012)Wondering what happened, the boy’s mother took him to a local university and learned that the caterpillar was supposed to struggle as a way of acquiring its wings and to achieve its destiny to become a butterfly. In fact, they were told, the caterpillar’s struggle to push its way through the tiny opening of the cocoon drives the fluid out of its body and into its wings. Without the struggle, the caterpillar would never, ever fly because squeezing out of that small hole was Nature’s way of preparing its wings for flight. Despite the boy’s kindness and his eagerness to help, his good wishes and virtuous behavior actually irreparably damaged the caterpillar and the boy innocently killed that which he was trying to help.Consider also another example of help that hurts: the current pain pill epidemic involving opioids—a class of powerful drugs that includes morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone, and brand names such as OxyContin, Vicodin, and Percocet—that are commonly prescribed to help people who need relief from acute and chronic pain (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016a). Chemically similar to heroin, they also have the potential to produce a feeling of euphoria. Although narcotic pain relievers offer important medical benefits when used appropriately, these drugs can have serious health consequences when taken without medical supervision, in larger amounts than prescribed, or in combination with alcohol or other prescription or over-the-counter drugs (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2014). When used over an extended time (generally > 3 months) nonmedical use can lead to drug dependence, addiction, and medical emergencies. An estimated 20% of patients presenting to physician offices with noncancer pain symptoms or pain-related diagnoses (including acute and chronic pain) receive an opioid prescription (Daubresse, Chang, Yu, Viswanathan, Shah, Stafford, Kruszewski, & Alexander, 2013). In 2012, health care providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for opioid pain medication, enough for every adult in the United States to have a bottle of pills (Paulozzi, Mack, & Hockenberry, 2014), and opioid abuse accounts for more than 400,000 emergency department visits each year (Crane, 2015). Sadly, more people died from drug overdoses in 2014 than in any year on record (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016b). The majority of drug overdose deaths (more than six out of ten) involve an opioid (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015), and since 1999, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids nearly quadrupled (CDC, 2016c). Seventy-eight Americans die every day from an opioid overdose (CDC, 2016b), and overdoses from prescription opioid pain relievers are a driving factor in the 15-year increase in opioid overdose deaths. Unlike other major epidemics such as those connected to methamphetamine, crack cocaine, or other illegal drugs, America’s prescription opioid problem may have been fueled, to a certain extent, by the actions of well-intended medical doctors wanting to help their patients, specifically their patients with chronic pain, which millions of Americans live with on a daily basis (Juman, 2013). About a decade ago, a movement to more adequately treat patients for pain gained momentum in the medical establishment. Doctors became more concerned about adequate pain management as a cornerstone of good practice and were broadly encouraged to take their patients’ reports of pain more seriously. They were told to stop viewing pain as an inevitable symptom of primary illness or aging but instead to look at pain as a primary issue in its own right that deserved the most robust treatment possible. Lembke (2012) noted that “It seems that the patient's subjective experience of pain now takes precedence over other, potentially competing, considerations. In contemporary medical culture, self-reports of pain are above question, and the treatment of pain is held up as the holy grail of compassionate medical care” (p. 1580). Physicians have a duty to relieve suffering, and many individuals became doctors to help people. But giving that help is not straightforward. Gounder (2013), herself a physician, noted this difficulty in explaining the downsides of narcotics to patients while declining to give them the medication they want: “He might accuse you of not understanding because you’re not the one in pain; he might question why you won’t give him what another doctor prescribed; he might give you a bad rating on a doctor-grading Web site. He might even accuse you of malpractice. None of this is rewarding for doctors: we’re frustrated that we can’t cure the pain, and that our patients end up upset with us.” This is complicated by the fact that many people believe deeply in the power of modern medicine to cure illness, and bristle at the notion that pain is a fact of life. The promise of a set of medicines that could cure pain was appealing to many patients—and, with a customer-is-always-right mentality having pervaded the doctor’s office, patients were able to pressure physicians to satisfy their requests for the pain pills they began hearing about. To avoid such negative reactions and driven partly by the pharmaceutical industry to appear compassionate and sympathetic many physicians began prescribing pain medications not only for treating cancer-related pain or pain at the end of life or after major surgery, but also for long-term pain caused by chronic conditions such as osteoarthritis, back pain, or bad knees. Prescribing opioid pain relievers in unprecedented numbers started with the best of intentions: to help individuals deal with their pain in the short-run. Unfortunately, the desire to help patients resulted in a public health disaster having multiple adverse health outcomes, including fatal overdoses, and long-term maladaptive physiological dependencies as an unintended consequences. Other compassionate helping strategies discussed herein may also create a dysfunctional psychological/social dependency.Like the butterfly struggling to emerge from its cocoon and individuals’ efforts for self-sufficiency and development can be short-circuited by compassionate intervention. This can happen when aid weakens the incentives for individuals to help themselves which leads aid recipients to be in or remain in a condition requiring assistance (Ellerman, 2004; Gronemeyer, 1992). Over time help becomes a reward for staying in the state of needing aid and creating dependency, entitlement, loss of personal initiative, eroding work ethic, and learned helplessness (Murray, 1984). In some cases receiving help may threaten people’s personal self-esteem because it can imply their inferiority relative to the helper (Nadler, 1991, 1998; Nadler & Fisher, 1986; Nadler, Fisher, & Ben-Itzhak, 1983), while also undermining their confidence and motivation to succeed (Fisher, Nadler, & Whitcher-Alagna, 1982). Offering assistance may generate seriously negative effects in aid recipients including loss of self-reliance, feelings of discomfort and obligation, decrements in social status, and derogations of the donor and the aid received (Fisher, DePaulo, & Nadler, 1981). Like in the opening vignette, sometimes providing aid, even with the best of aims, can be problematic. Our goal is to open up perspectives as much as analyzing facts and to bridge the chasm between the rhetoric and the reality of aiding the needy. We recognize that those who question benevolence will not win many popularity contests and in some ways we feel somewhat uncomfortable by suggesting that helping others may actually hurt them. In part this is because in U.S. culture giving and providing aid are often viewed as monolithically positive, nearly sacred qualities beyond reproach with negligible tradeoffs, whether or not the assistance is genuinely beneficial (Oakley, Knafo, & McGrath, 2012). “It’s the thought that counts,” as the saying goes, when discounting negative consequences of giving, assisting, and helping the less fortunate. We are not trying to discount the importance of donating or providing aid to others but to address those who have extolled its value without realistically considering when such actions contain the potential for harm. Our aim is to foster more productive patterns of giving. The major implication of this review is not a call for a reduction of aid, help, and care but rather an appeal for rethinking strategies for assisting others and to shift frames of reference to include the possibility that giving to and helping others may inflict costs. Sometimes help is truly facilitating and at times, particularly in the long-run and if repeatedly provided, it contributes to inadvertent injury mainly due to the detrimental effects of entitlement dependency, and narcissism which appear to be increasing in U.S. society (Twenge & Campbell, 2009). Over time individuals receiving such aid often become inveterate takers. Accordingly, the scope of this paper is limited to sustained, long term help to the needy rather than lifesaving help in times of catastrophe. Igneski (2008) argues that the duty to rescue is a special type of obligation to aid and not the toxic generosity that often evolves with prolonged, repeated assistance. The morally tidy narrative that aiding others is an unmitigated good and lack of assistance is unequivocally bad must receive a more nuanced assessment. Again and again, one finds benevolent aid being defended as “doing good” in the sense of delivering resources to the needy without any real recognition as to how it can undercut and weaken incentives for developing self-reliance and autonomy—key American values (Baker, 2014)—in aid recipients. Hence, this review aims to encourage a thoughtful consideration of the possibility that giving, helping, and assisting, unless temporary and not endlessly repeated, will tend to undermine individuals’ capacity for helping themselves and destroy personal initiative. Lupton (2011) voiced such a concern when he said that “Giving to those in need what they could be gaining from their own initiative may well be the kindest way to destroy people” (p. 69). Indeed, “most external help actually overrides or undercuts the budding capacity for self-help and thus ends up being unhelpful” (Ellerman, 2007, p. 562). We define giving quite broadly to include prosocial attitudes, traits, and behaviors. Behaviors themselves can range widely from informal support and care to formal giving experiences such as volunteering. What each of these has in common is that they are all focused on increasing others’ well-being (Konrath & Brown, 2013). In our analysis we explore the dynamics of helping by first noting the increased calls for societal compassion, altruism, and assistance. We then discuss how eleemosynary aid to relieve symptoms of maladies may create a situation of moral hazard that weakens incentives and attenuates efforts for positive change to eliminate such difficulties. Several areas where help may be hurting aid recipients are next presented as exemplars of assistance that highlight problematic aspects of giving and helping. We then offer a model of helping based on individuals having “skin in the game” as exemplified by Habitat for Humanity (n.d.). We conclude with a summary.Calls for Help, Assistance, and Other Prosocial BehaviorOver the millennia moral philosophers, cultural pundits, and spiritual thinkers have written positively about acts of charity, mercy, and kindness in the context of the ethic of beneficence (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2013) and more recently within the ethics of care (Gilligan, 1987). Some philosophers have asserted a moral obligation/duty to assist people in need (Herman, 1996; Kant, 1969 [1785], Singer, 1972; Unger, 1996). Beneficent actions and motives have traditionally occupied a central place in morality because they connote doing good. Most ethical theory has embraced various aspects of beneficence, and utilitarian theorists see generosity as the foundation for creating the greatest benefit for all. Common examples today are found in social welfare programs, philanthropy, scholarships for needy and meritorious students, disaster relief, programs to benefit children, the disabled, and the incompetent, and preferential hiring and higher educational admission policies and practices. More recently social scientists likewise have emphasized the importance of compassion in social life and have called for increased demonstrations of altruism, giving, grace, and prosocial acts toward those in need (e.g., Dutton, Workman, & Hardin, 2014; Frost, 1999; Fryer, 2013; George, 2014; A. Grant, 2013; K. Grant, 2008; MacAskill, 2015; Nussbaum, 2001; Post, 2003; Sepp?l?, 2015; Singer, 2015). Keltner (2008) goes a step further, arguing that humans have evolved to be compassionate. Beneficence toward those less fortunate, assisting people in need, demonstrating kindness to others, generosity, and trying to relieve individuals’ grief and misery through help, aid, favors, and donations is often portrayed as one of society’s main moral duties (Salter, 2008). Indeed, some individuals find it disturbing to question the value of compassion, altruism, charitable giving, and other prosocial behaviors and seem to suggest that these qualities be revered without question (Center for Compassion, n.d.; Oakley, 2013). Additionally, a global community of scholars, writers, specialists, and teachers interested in demonstrating the well-being benefits of positive traits, states, and experiences has recently emerged including the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California at Berkeley, the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, the Compassion Lab at the University of Michigan, the Centre for Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne, the Well-Being Institute at Cambridge University, The Centre for Effective Altruism at Oxford, and the Optentia Research Programme in South Africa. Such groups have promoted increased giving, helping, and compassion (e.g., Fryer, 2013) and find it disturbing to question the value of compassion, altruism, and charitable giving, and seem to suggest that these qualities be revered without question (Center for Compassion, n.d.; Oakley, 2013). The appeals of such institutes are aimed at ultimately increasing “helping behaviors”, “caring behaviors”, and “altruism” (Brief & Motowidlo, 1986) that commonly includes kindness, generosity, nurturance, care, altruistic love, compassion, and “niceness” demonstrated by doing favors for others, helping them, and taking care of them (Armstrong, 2010; Park & Peterson, 2006; Park, Peterson & Seligman, 2004; Peterson, 2006). Nadler (2002) suggests that helping others is a positively valued behavior in most, if not all, human societies, and is said to flow directly from our common sense of community and dignity. Moreover, the work of such researchers and practitioners, as they attend to big and small suffering, has overwhelmingly concentrated on persons who provide help rather than persons who receive it. Comparatively little research has been devoted to the effect of aid on recipients (for an exception, see Nadler, 2015). It is often assumed that helping is constructive and beneficial and that beneficiaries of aid are grateful for the help received (Fisher et al., 1981; Zarri, 2013). These scientists have identified a host of ways in which charitable behavior can lead to benefits for the giver, whether economically via tax breaks (Clotfelter, 1997; Reece & Zieschang 1985), socially via signaling one’s wealth or status (Glazer & Konrad 1996; Griskevicius et al., 2007) or psychologically via experiencing well-being from helping (Andreoni, 1990; Dunn, Aknin, & Norton, 2008; A. Grant, 2013; Post, 2011). Coming from a different perspective, researchers have also examined the costs (e.g., compassion fatigue; burnout) of helping and caring on aid providers who assist the needy and the traumatized (Flynn, 2003; Portnoy, 2011). Hidden Costs of HelpingThe focus on positive effects on donors of helping others has obscured problematic effects of prosocial elements on aid receivers because oftentimes such programs are designed and implemented with little awareness that helping may have detrimental effects (Corbett & Fikkert, 2014; Nadler, Fisher, & Streufert, 1976); that is, well-meaning initiatives wind up hurting the parties they were designed to help because people have little understanding of the negative impact of their good deeds. Other studies have noted that receiving social support has been associated with increased depression, feelings of guilt, and feelings of dependency in correlational studies (Liang, Krause, & Bennett, 2001; Lu, 1997; Lu & Argyle, 1992). Furthermore, in a 5-year longitudinal study that controlled for a number of potential alternative explanations (e.g. age, gender, physical health, health risk behaviors, personality traits), there was a 30% increase in mortality for individuals who reported receiving practical support from friends and family members at the beginning of the study (Brown, Nesse, Vinokur, & Smith, 2003). Many such efforts have undoubtedly been motivated, in part, by noble intentions and a sincere desire to help those thought to be underprivileged. Nevertheless, helping may not be constructive because of the very old idea that the best form of assistance is to help people help themselves. Most are familiar with the ancient Chinese saying that if people are given a fish, they are fed for a day, but if they are taught how to fish they can feed themselves for a lifetime (Alvarez & van Leeuwen, 2011; Ellerman, 2005; Nadler, Halabi, Harpaz-Gorodeisky, 2009). Giving people fish is a temporary palliative that in the absence of meaningful behavior on the recipient’s part is likely to impede rather than promote their growth and development. More recently, Nadler’s model of intergroup helping, (Nadler, 1997, 1998, 2002; Nadler & Halabi, 2006) distinguishes between autonomy-oriented and dependency-oriented help. Dependency-oriented help provides a full solution to the problem, is less concerned with the recipient’s autonomy, and reflects the helper’s view that the needy cannot help themselves. In contrast, autonomy-oriented help is partial and temporary, it is aimed at empowering the disadvantaged and assumes that, given the appropriate tools, recipients can help themselves and live autonomous independent lives (Igneski, 2008). Similarly, Dewey and Tufts (1908) indicated that “The best kind of help to others, whenever possible, is indirect, and consists in such modifications of the conditions of life, of the general level of subsistence, as enables them independently to help themselves” (p. 350). These perspectives do not entail an obligation to make people as happy as possible but a concern about providing persons with the tools they need to make themselves happy. Thus, providing instrumental autonomy-oriented help is advised for long term constructive recipient behavior. Ongoing help, however, may cause unintentional harm because of unwholesome dynamics and pathologies that fester under the cover of kindheartedness. The point is not to oppose these activities but to point out how benevolence often operates in the longer term to erode the aid recipients’ incentives to help themselves—thus creating dependency relationships and unhelpful help or, in the words of Ellerman (2005), “Charity corrupts; long-term charity corrupts long term” (p. 12). Such long-term aid, instead of enabling self-help, creates a perverse dependency-creating alternative to self-help. This happens despite helping activities often being perceived as reflecting good intentions. Noble motives, however, do not always translate into valuable outcomes. Smith (2008) cautions against judging by intentions alone with a dramatic example: “Hitler and his Nazi Party firmly believed that they were helping all mankind [sic] by killing all Jews, Slavs, gypsies, and homosexuals so as to ‘purify the Aryan race’” (p. 11). Additionally, recent research indicates that virtues across a wide number of domains can wreak havoc in the long-run and at high levels can have antithetical consequences on well-being and/or performance (Breeden, 2013). In many areas one finds that seemingly virtuous behavior may be problematic. Grant and Schwartz (2011), for example, document the deleterious effects of such honorable virtues as gratitude, forgiveness, hope, caring, kindness, generosity, volunteering, and empathy. In a particularly poignant medical example Groopman (2007) failed to diagnose a life-threatening infection in a hospitalized cancer patient because his empathy for the patient’s discomfort in the face of grueling chemotherapy induced him not to ask his patient to roll over and be examined for bedsores—thereby hastening his patient’s death. Thus, to say that helping is an absolute good may simply be painting with too broad a brush and that attempts to assist others sometimes come with impairments and can have tradeoffs that worsen the very concerns that were meant to be eased.Accordingly, in determining whether aid of any given type is beneficial, individuals (and governments) must consider whether it is likely to significantly increase the number and worsen the condition of beneficiaries of aid. All too often heartfelt efforts to help are in reality salving people’s own consciences without fully examining the impact on those they seek to help. In a culture such as the U.S. that places high value on kindness, empathy, charity, and altruism and for those who treat these concepts as sacred such views may cognitively blind individuals to its harms (Haidt, 2013). Without approaching kindness interpreted as helping others with a healthy dose of mindfulness (e.g., Davis & Hayes, 2011), individuals often become blind to the ways such a virtue can sometimes hurt people. These individuals may be inclined to believe that if there are negative effects of helping then surely it is an aberration. Rather than being an anomaly, however, helping can be problematic because of the well-known phenomenon called moral hazard. Moral HazardBroadly speaking, moral hazard occurs when one party has a tendency or incentive to behave inappropriately; i.e., people who have a reasonable expectation of altruists assisting them in case of need often alter their own behavior to shift the costs of preventing needs onto altruists (Browne & Hoyt, 2000; Einav, Finkelstein, Ryan, Schrimpf, & Cullen, 2013; Schwarze & Wagner, 2004). Moral hazard, sometimes referred to as charity hazard (Browne & Hoyt, 2000) or disaster syndrome (Kunreuther, 2000), posits a downside to private or public help or aid because recipients may begin to rely on free aid and others’ assistance, instead of their own efforts. Essentially, the anticipation of aid crowds out self-protective activities because individuals do not take appropriate action to help themselves because of expected governmental or private assistance. A system whereby relief or aid is given to the worst off may create moral hazard because people or institutions receiving help for being worst off have less incentive to improve. Moral hazard problems arise whenever individuals’ behavior is affected because they are protected from the consequences of their actions. Moral hazards are encountered every day: tenured professors have secure jobs and poor teaching or research have little or no career consequences; people with auto theft insurance are less vigilant about where they park; salaried salespeople take long breaks, and so on.The Samaritan’s dilemmaA specific example of a moral hazard is the Samaritan’s dilemma derived from the Biblical story of the “Good Samaritan” (Luke 10:29-37, New International Version). In traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, the Samaritan (the altruist) assisted a person who had been robbed and beaten by thieves. Under the circumstances of this event, the Samaritan is properly lauded for his exemplary conduct. However, an unintended consequence of such generosity is that it may induce adverse behavior of other potential aid recipients. Buchanan (1975) illustrated that if the Samaritan decides to assist more unlucky travelers, other journeyers would likely take less care to avoid thieves and other hazards. In short, the Samaritan’s dilemma arises whenever the extension of aid increases the number of situations requiring aid. Thus, the Samaritan’s dilemma is a pervasive problem as people respond to those in “need.” Buchanan (1975) indicated that “we may simply be too compassionate for our own well-being or for that of an orderly and productive free society” (p. 71) and that such altruism, if left unchecked, would have catastrophic consequences for the human race as a whole.Interestingly, even thinking about help from others goals can have adverse consequences. For example Fitzsimons and Finkel (2011) randomly assigned American women who cared a great deal about their health and fitness to think about how their spouse was helpful, either with their health and fitness goals or for their career goals (control group). Women who thought about how their spouse was helpful with their health and fitness goals became less motivated to work hard to pursue those goals. Relative to the control group, these women planned to spend one-third less time in the coming week pursuing their goals. This research illustrated what Fitzsimons and Finkel (2011) call “self-regulatory outsourcing” (p. 369) in which considering how others can be helpful for a given goal undermines motivation to expend effort on that goal. It seems that when people think about how someone else can help them, they unconsciously “outsource” effort to their prospective helper, relying on them for future goal progress, and, consequently, exerting less effort themselves. Should an individual permit a neighbor readily to borrow groceries or tools if this is likely to encourage the neighbor to be in chronic need of assistance in the future (Wagner, 1989)? Does extending an unemployment benefit create an incentive not to work, or is it the humane thing to do in a harsh job market? Does a potential aid recipient increase his or her risk of becoming impoverished because they know that a benevolent government will step in to provide relief? Such helping, gifting, or assisting can over time be problematic because it may create a moral hazard. We now present several scenarios where helping is toxic because of moral hazard. These settings are taken from a number of diverse areas and are presented to illustrate the ubiquity of the phenomenon and are not intended to be exhaustive. Where Helping May Be HurtingThe sometimes unforeseen misfortunes of assistance are explored here by examining several areas where benevolence may be problematic for recipients of aid. In such areas—affirmative action, the Native American experience, home ownership, welfare, foreign aid, inheritances and intergenerational transfers, and gambling—helping people (or organizations) repeatedly in the short run may create pernicious effects that damage them in the long run. In moral hazard terminology, such assistance over time diminishes incentives for the needy to reduce risk and undertake agentic behavior because of the anticipation, indeed, expectation, that help will be provided by others. That effects can change over time is not a new concept. Rousseau’s analysis in Book I and II of Emile described the change in causality in children crying: “The first tears of children are prayers. If one is not careful, they soon become orders. Children begin by getting themselves assisted; they end by getting themselves served” (1979 [1762], p. 66). More recently Lupton (2011) noted the following progression: giving once elicits appreciation; giving twice creates anticipation; giving three times generates expectations; giving four times produces entitlement; and giving five times establishes dependency. Affirmative actionTo level the playing field for job applicants or employees and to demonstrate support for equal opportunity organizations around the globe have implemented affirmative action plans (AAPs) which are policies designed to improve work and educational outcomes for underrepresented groups by providing them with extra help (Sowell, 2005; Yang, D’Souza, Bapat, & Colarelli, 2006). AAPs are designed to facilitate a transition to more equal relations between ethnic and racial groups and to assist the less advantaged to realize their potential and attain equality, and thus help promote organizational and institutional diversity and redress societal injustice (Turner, Pratkanis, & Hardaway, 1991). It is perhaps the most important antidiscrimination technique ever instituted in the United States and has had a demonstrable effect on discrimination (Turner & Pratkanis, 1994).Nevertheless, AAPs are not without drawbacks. Although important in achieving such goals, these programs have, nevertheless, been criticized as amplifying the targeted group’s dependence and inferiority that is implied by reliance on another’s assistance (Nadler & Fisher, 1986; Riley, 2014).H This perpetuates rather than corrects social inequality (Niemann & Dovidio, 2005; Pratkanis & Turner, 1996). These procedures can also stimulate backlash among non-beneficiaries who may feel unfairly disadvantaged by these policies (Harrison, Kravitz, Mayer, Leslie, & Lev-Arey, 2006; Shteynberg, Leslie, Knight, & Mayer, 2011). In addition, AAPs can cause the very employees they are intended to benefit to be stigmatized as incompetent by both others and the self (e.g., Heilman, 1994; Leslie, Mayer, & Kravitz, 2014).Specifically, the presence of AAPs raise the possibility that members of the groups the AAP targets were hired due to their demographics, not their qualifications. Scholars have theorized that others therefore discount the possibility that AAP targets are competent (e.g., Garcia, Erskine, Hawn, & Casmay, 1981; Heilman, Block, & Lucas, 1992) and, in a parallel fashion, that AAPs and the associated possibility that demographics played a role in selection cause AAP targets to doubt their own self-competence (e.g., Heilman, Simon, & Repper, 1987; Niemann & Dovidio, 2005). Perceived incompetence likely results in poor performance outcomes (e.g., Heilman & Alcott, 2001) leading Steele (1990) to indicate that “…Preferential treatment, no matter how justified in the light of day, subjects blacks to a midnight of self-doubt, and so often transforms their advantage into a revolving door (pp. 117-118). Programs awarding preference according to race or sex are also opposed on the grounds that they cause much more harm than good because such preferential treatment programs encourage dependency and reward people for identifying themselves as victims providing them no incentives to become self-reliant or to develop the skills necessary to succeed in the work place or classroom (Eastland & Bennett, 1979; Howard & Hammond, 1985). Affirmative action in higher education, intended to address past discrimination, has resulted in fewer black college graduates—particularly in the fields of math and science—that were experienced in the absence of racial preferences (Riley, 2014). Similarly, Sander and Taylor (2012) argue that race-based admissions preferences for minority students lead to “mismatch” between students and universities.?As a result of race-based preferences, students are admitted to more selective schools than they otherwise would be based on their academic credentials alone. Once enrolled at these more prestigious schools, the students fall behind and are less likely to finish. This “mismatch” effect, the authors contend, then cascades down all tiers of higher education, with the harmful effects becoming more pronounced at each successive tier.Such AAPs reinforce ugly stereotypes of, for example, black inferiority and the pernicious notion that blacks are not academically talented which causes significant long-term harm. Affirmative action policies that initially said people must be judged without regard to race and sex evolved into policies that required the consideration of those characteristics leading Thomas Sowell, an American economist, social theorist, political philosopher to state, “I simply do not see the justice in making people who are badly off worse off, in the name of advancing them” (1983; see also Sowell, 2005). In summary, to the extent that AAPs and the associated stigma of incompetence limit targets’ performance, AAPs may have the opposite of their intended impact. Thus, the benevolent intention that underlies affirmative action programs may be misconstrued and lead to increased tensions between the advantaged group that initiated them and the disadvantaged groups which are its intended beneficiaries. The charitable intentions directed towards one particular disadvantaged U.S. population segment, Native Americans, are now presented.The Native American experienceIn a highly controversial story, journalist John Stossel reported that Native Americans have been “helped” by the government more than any other group, yet struggles more than any other group. Stossel (2011) reported that almost 25% of Native Americans live in poverty and 66% are born to single mothers. On some reservations, the poverty rate is 50% and higher. This, despite almost $13 billion spent across 20 federal government programs every year. On the other hand, Stossel points to examples of successful Native Americans not living on the reservation outperforming Natives living on reservations.Increasing welfare payments may actually increase poverty levels. A study by Guedel (2014) of two dozen Native American gaming tribes located in the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska found that growing tribal gaming revenues can make poverty worse. Between 2000 and 2010 casinos owned by those tribes doubled their total annual take in real terms to $2.7 billion. From an economic perspective, it would seem reasonable to expect the infusion of new capital provided by tribal gaming to be a catalyst for poverty reduction, and likewise expect to see the individual and collective poverty percentages for tribes decrease. On a collective basis, the actual results for these northwestern tribes demonstrated the opposite: an inverse correlation between per capita payments (in which tribes distribute casino profits directly to tribal members) and poverty reduction. Of the 17 tribes in the study that dispersed cash from casinos directly to members, ten (58.8%) saw their poverty rates rise. Of the seven tribes that did not provide per capita payments to members, only two saw a poverty increase. In tribes with high unemployment and poverty, per capita payments are often viewed as a means of collective support by and for tribal members, with each member eligible for an equal share of tribal wealth.It appears that per capita payments for poverty reduction in Native American communities—which some have likened to a welfare-type system—provided a disincentive for work and dissipated tribal economic resources that could be better used to finance strategic initiatives such as scholarships for higher education (McGee, 2013). Indeed, Native American Ron Whitener, law professor, tribal judge, and a member of the Squaxin Island Tribe indicated: “These [per capita] payments can be destructive because the more generous they become, the more people fall into the trap of not working” (Payne, 2015).Home ownershipMore recently, well-meaning governmental policies to enact the American Dream of homeownership in the 1990s and early 2000s allowed less-than-qualified individuals to receive housing loans and encouraged more-qualified buyers to overextend themselves. Typical risk-reward considerations were disregarded because of implicit government support (Acharya, Richardson, van Nieuwerburgh, & White, 2011). As a result, homeownership for such historically “underserved” borrowers increased significantly; yet when economic conditions deteriorated, many lost their homes or found themselves with properties worth far less than they originally had paid, and taxpayers were left with trillion-dollar costs and a prolonged economic crisis.Essentially, with the noblest of purposes, a permissive lending environment was created in which people were given too much money to buy houses they could not afford, resulting in catastrophic damage. The good intentions inherent in such “feel good,” emotionally-based practices frequently follow short-term, superficial heuristics for helping others that are often implemented without a critical, in-depth analysis of costs. An initial snap, common-sense judgment about what seems right in helping others can gel quickly into formidable certitude without consideration of important relevant facts. An awareness of the insidious effects of giving and helping could have facilitated better regulation in order to mitigate its costs and enhance its benefits. There may have been significant advantages for all U.S. citizens if some had been told “no.”Welfare: Individual and corporate welfareWelfare for individuals. Sometimes there are detrimental long-term effects on American families because of many well-intentioned welfare programs (Funiciello, 1993; Voegeli, 2010). This appears to be a long-lasting issue and is endemic in government programs to assist the poor. Hazlitt (1971), for example, describes two lessons that can be drawn from the effects of welfare in ancient Rome: “The first is that once the dole or similar relief programs are introduced, they seem almost inevitably to get out of hand. The second lesson is that once this happens, the poor become more numerous and worse off than they were before, not only because they have lost self-reliance, but because the sources of wealth and production on which they depended for either doles or jobs are diminished or destroyed” (p. 219). In short, in collectively assisting the needy through government handouts, the number of the poor increased because work incentives were adversely affected.As a more recent example, consider that Congress initiated cuts in welfare by passing The 1996 Welfare Reform Law (also known as The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 [PRWORA]) amid predictions that it would result in substantial increases in destitution, hunger, and other social ills. For example, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) proclaimed the new law to be “the most brutal act of social policy since reconstruction” (Huffington, 1996). He predicted, “Those involved will take this disgrace to their graves” (Welfare as They Know It, 2001, p. A14). However, in a six year evaluation of this welfare reform law Rector and Fagan (2003) noted that overall poverty, child poverty, poverty of single mothers, and child hunger declined substantially. Employment of single mothers increased dramatically, and welfare rolls plummeted. The share of children living in single-mother families fell, and the share of children living in married-couple families grew, especially among black families. Pardue (2003) observed that black child poverty declined from 41.5% to 30% in this six year period—the biggest decline in recorded history. Cutting welfare payments, led to decreased levels of poverty suggesting that the government had induced otherwise able-bodied people to become dependent on welfare.Interestingly, PRWORA also cut eligibility to Medicaid for noncitizen immigrants. Borjas (2003) found, contrary to expectations, that health insurance coverage among noncitizen immigrants increased after their eligibility for Medicaid was reduced—an effect that could not be explained by the robust economy of the 1990s. Borjas argued that affected immigrants increased their work effort and found jobs with health benefits. We are in agreement with U.S. founding father, Benjamin Franklin who said some 250 years ago: “I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer” (Franklin, 1766). Corporate welfare. It makes sense to bail out bankrupt banks and avoid financial meltdown in the economy, but if governments offer this guarantee then banks have a greater incentive to take risks knowing they will get bailed out. Some hold that certain financial institutions are so large and so interconnected that their failure would be disastrous to the economy—and they therefore must be supported by government when they face difficulty. The colloquial term “too big to fail” has been used to describe this situation (Lin, 2010). By declaring a company too big to fail means that the government or central bank may step in and help these institutions if they get into financial trouble. Financial bailouts of lending institutions by governments, central banks or other institutions can encourage risky lending in the future if those that take the risks come to believe that they will not have to carry the full burden of potential losses. Lending institutions need to take risks by making loans, and usually the most risky loans have the potential for making the highest return. So-called “too big to fail” lending institutions can make risky loans that will pay handsomely if the investment turns out well but be bailed out by the taxpayer if the investment turns out badly.Taxpayers, depositors, and other creditors often have to shoulder at least part of the burden of risky financial decisions made by lending institutions (Wilson, 2009). According to the World Bank, of the nearly 100 banking crises that have occurred internationally from 1980 to 2000, all were resolved by bailouts at taxpayer expense (Boyd, Gomis, Kwak, & Smith, 2000).As former Federal Reserve Bank chairperson, Ben Bernanke (2010), indicated, “If creditors believe that an institution will not be allowed to fail, they will not demand as much compensation for risks as they otherwise would, thus weakening market discipline; nor will they invest as many resources in monitoring the firm’s risk-taking. As a result, too-big-to-fail firms will tend to take more risk than desirable, in the expectation that they will receive assistance if their bets go bad.”While government bailouts or intervention might help a company survive (e.g., Chrysler), some opponents believe it is counterproductive to help companies that deliberately take high-risk high-return positions because they are able to leverage these risks based on the governmental policy preferences they receive (Drew, 2009; Gup, 2003). Some critics, such as former Federal Reserve chair, Alan Greenspan, believe that such large organizations should be deliberately broken up: “If they’re too big to fail, they’re too big” (McKee & Lanman, 2009). More than fifty prominent economists, financial experts, bankers, finance industry groups, and banks themselves have called for breaking up large banks into smaller institutions (The Big Picture, 2013). Relatedly, Suarez (1994) showed that the threat of being closed can be seen as “an effective way to induce the bank to be prudent when the present value of its future rents is sufficiently high” (p. 24) from which he infers that the optimal strategy for a central bank is to commit credibly to withdrawing the bank’s charter in case of bankruptcy. It appears that when people and firms are protected from the consequences of their behavior then bad things often happen.Foreign aid Foreign aid has often presented more challenges than opportunities to aid-receiving countries (Ear, 2013; Kennedy, 2004). There have been small improvements across the globe, from reducing poverty to slowing population growth to curing and preventing diseases, but the impact from aid has not been proportionate to the amount of money donated. Foreign aid’s biggest downside is that frequently there is no clear, effective system put in place to hold aid recipients and their governments accountable for resources illegally taken from public sector coffers—a long-standing, and still very present, trend from Asia to Africa to Latin America/Caribbean to Europe. Unfortunately, the absence of that system reinforces social inequities and perpetuates cycles of political abuse that has led to a sophisticated new form of authoritarianism—one that empowers the elite few, while keeping a majority of people in abject poverty. Some 30 years ago Bovard (1986) argued convincingly that the success of foreign aid is often measured by intentions, not results. Using the U.S. as one example, Bovard (1986) indicated that “[F]oreign aid has routinely failed to benefit the foreign poor…[and] the U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID] has dotted the countryside with ‘white elephants’…the biggest…of them all—a growing phalanx of corrupt, meddling, and overpaid bureaucrats” (p. 1).It seems that foreign aid might create perverse incentives and undermine the development of sound institutions in the recipient countries in part because large amounts of aid delivered to low-income countries with poor institutions and governance can create a cycle of aid dependence where the recipient government begins to rely considerably on foreign sources to perform key operational and fiscal tasks. Alternatively, it could refer to a situation where the recipient government is discouraged from expending any efforts towards inducing development because it anticipates that foreign assistance is on the way. Indeed, foreign aid supplies large amounts of unearned capital to governments in a windfall-type manner (Nager, 2013).Such behavior is essentially motivated by the fact that recipient governments continue to receive development assistance even if they have made no concerted efforts to effectively utilize received funds. In fact, such guarantees can potentially induce ‘moral hazard’ behavior on the part of recipient governments, where they may pursue unproductive policies that are more likely to encourage agencies to continue funding. For example, the anticipation of charity in the case of a large-scale disaster might prompt governments to diminish protection (Buchanan, 1975; Coate, 1995) since “… current decisions of economic agents depend in part upon their expectations of future policy actions” (Kydland & Prescott, 1977, p. 474).Even the World Bank has conceded that in countries with weak institutions, “the Bank’s interventions may have delayed the development of effective, self-reliant cadres and institutions” (Kapur, Lewis, & Webb, 1997, volume 1, p. 421). The essential problem with this intervention is that there are no consequences associated with poor efforts from the recipient government. As a result of this phenomenon, beneficiary governments have weak incentives to efficiently utilize received funds, and generate sustainable development. In the recipient country, aid dependence can impact institutions by weakening institutional capacity, siphoning off scarce talent from the bureaucracy, diminishing accountability, encouraging rent seeking and corruption, fomenting conflict over control of aid funds, and alleviating pressures to reform inefficient policies and institutions. For instance, a resident of Equatorial Guinea described his country’s neglect of facility maintenance: “Everything is given to them; they don’t take care of anything and don’t have to” (Klitgaard, 1990, p. 98). When vulnerable groups are exposed to the international relief system, the end result may be the wholesale destruction of a culture. Despite over $2 trillion provided to Africa over the last 50 years, former World Bank consultant Dambisa Moyo, a native of Zambia, indicated such aid has resulted in measurably worsened outcomes in a broad variety of areas, supporting despotism and increasing corruption and a sense of dependency in Africans (Moyo, 2009).The idea that foreign aid often hurts, rather than helps, poor people in poor countries was observed by economist and 2015 Nobel prize winner, Angus Deaton. Deaton (e.g., 2013) observed that in order to have the funding to run a country, a government needs to collect taxes from its people. Since the people ultimately hold the purse strings, they have a certain amount of control over their government. If leaders do not?deliver the basic services they promise, the people have the power to?remove them. Foreign aid (especially to countries where they get an enormous amount of aid relative to everything else in that country) can weaken?this connection and change the relationship between a government and its people, leaving a government less accountable to its people, the congress, or parliament. Governments that get much of their money from aid do not have to be answerable to their constituents and consequently makes them more despotic. It can also increase the risk of civil war, since there is less power sharing, as well as a lucrative prize worth fighting for. All this leads to corrosive effects and general economic decline as Deaton has observed in countries as Zaire, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Biafra. [To be fair, Deaton believes that certain types of health aid— offering vaccinations, or developing cheap and effective drugs to treat malaria, for example—have been hugely beneficial to developing countries.] Consistent with this analysis, Rajan and Subramanian (2005) observed that much foreign aid flowing into a country tended to be correlated with lower economic growth and that countries that receive less aid tend to have higher growth, while those that receive more aid have lower growth. Another perspective also finds that aid may negatively impact countries. It seems that reductions in foreign aid, while initially difficult, may over the long run be beneficial. For example, the end of U.S. aid—which had been generous in the 1950s—is often credited for the Korean and Taiwanese economic turnarounds of the 1960s (Rodrik, 1996). Foreign aid, it seems, has largely encouraged Third World governments and their populations to rely on hand-outs instead of on themselves for development thus again demonstrating the corrosive effects of help. Echoing this sentiment is one of the world’s best known philanthropists and rock band U2 lead singer, Bono, who said “Aid is just a stopgap. Commerce [and] entrepreneurial capitalism takes more people out of poverty than aid. We need Africa to become an economic powerhouse” (Theroux, 2013).Inheritances and intergenerational transfers and gamblingInheritances. That sudden, unearned wealth can have deleterious effects is well known. Nearly every culture has some version of the axiom “from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations,” dating back to China over 2000 years ago. The proverb describes how the first generation works hard to create a fortune; the second generation enjoys its spoils, substituting hard work with entertainment, and the third generation—with no role model to follow—squanders what remains of the fortune, relegating their children to starting the process over again. Sullivan (2013), for example, found that 70% of an affluent family’s wealth is typically gone by the end of the second generation, and 90% is destroyed by the end of the third.?Psychologists specializing in “sudden wealth syndrome” (Schorsch, 2012) acknowledge that heirs, like lottery winners, tend to squander their sudden fortune.Having been born into money, they may also expect that their financial support will continue. The sense of cause and effect between management of their assets and returns is not inherited; it must be developed. Thus, each new family owner must develop a sense of fiduciary responsibility, an understanding of his or her role, a realistic expectation of return, an understanding of risk, and be willing to be part of relevant decisions. A strong sense of entitlement usually leads to unrealistic expectations and conflict with reality. Additionally, there is frequently a lack of personally and socially beneficial purposes guiding the use of inherited wealth. O’Neil (1997) documented how money transferred to heirs without a meaningful purpose leads to negative character qualities, such as the inability to delay gratification, unwillingness to tolerate frustration, feelings of failure, and a false sense of entitlement.Members of wealthy families are often concerned that their family wealth not “spoil” their heirs (Dashew, 2002; Goldbart, Jaffe, & DiFuria, 2003) and that their children and grandchildren will “end up lazy, good-for-nothings” (Baron & Lachenauer, 2014) who do not contribute to society. Yet their children, growing up with such privilege find it difficult to develop a sense of responsibility to work to expand the family’s portfolio, or even a sense that such a task is worth doing. The family must find ways to develop values, personal responsibility, and commitment with socially useful activities. Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, for instance, did not allow his children to have access to their inheritance. When he died in 1877, it is estimated that he was one of the richest men in the world. As trustee, his oldest son decided it was their money and gave all the heirs direct access to their inheritances (Jaffe & Lane, 2004). He, too, was one of the richest men in the world at his death. “When 120 of the Commodore’s descendants gathered at Vanderbilt University in 1973 for the first family reunion there was not a millionaire among them” (Vanderbilt II, 1989, p. ix). It appeared that family members may have been raised to expect a certain lifestyle that can quickly deplete a family’s wealth-producing assets.Gambling and lottery winners. Government agencies routinely distribute large sums of money in a windfall manner to those who purchase lottery tickets. In effect, lotteries constitute large-scale non-contingent (i.e., independent of performance) processes that provide unearned largesse (Doherty, Gerber, & Green, 2006). Individuals who obtain big winnings in various state lotteries often suffer a ruinous set of circumstances. Individuals who win big time usually lose big time too as the web of their social relationships is ripped apart by greed. Money is a form of power, and any time one’s power exceeds one’s understanding the result is chaos and destruction. Persons who have wealth because they have earned it are not as likely to be harmed by it because they were able to exercise the discipline and restraint needed in order to accumulate capital in the first place. It is when big money falls into one’s lap (i.e., non-contingent) that real problems are most likely to occur. Lottery ticket winners do not necessarily end up wealthier. Many end up bankrupt or broke within a short period of time. Hankins, Hoekstra, and Skiba (2011) found that more than 1,900 Florida lottery winners went bankrupt within five years, suggesting that lottery players were twice as likely to file for bankruptcy as the general population. The study also found that large lottery winners were less likely than small lottery winners to go bankrupt within the first two years, but the odds of bankruptcy were equal after five. It was as if the additional funds just postponed the inevitable. Even the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards estimates that nearly one third of lottery winners will become bankrupt.Winnings in gambling may also be considered a windfall. Gambling can be seen as a way of circumventing the principle that rewards should be achieved through work and it has at times been looked upon as a threat to the work ethic (Binde, 2007; Cosgrave & Klassen, 2001). Insofar as strong behavioral norms exist in society, emphasizing the virtues of earning one’s living through employment as opposed to living in idleness, large lottery winnings might also be viewed as representing a negative potential in that they encounter opportunities for withdrawal from the labor market. Many gamblers constantly hope that, somehow, somewhere, their “ships will come in” without much effort on their part.Other areasBecause of space limitations, we do not address additional areas that provide unearned largesse resulting in detrimental effects in the long term. For example, codependence and enabling (McGrath, & Oakley, 2012), unemployment benefits (Hagedorn, Karahan, Manovskii, & Mitman, 2015), grade inflation (Felton & Koper, 2005), participation trophies (Merryman, 2013), natural resource curse (Haber & Menaldo, 2011), nursing home residents (Langer & Rodin, 1976), and “helicopter” or “hovering” parenting (Schiffrin, Liss, Miles-McLean, Geary, Erchull, & Tashner, 2014) have illustrated that helping can hurt. A Model for Helping: Having Some “Skin in the Game”The moral hazard literature early on recognized the tradeoff between full insurance and optimal care-level incentives. The idea was simple: if the insured enjoyed only partial insurance coverage, some incentive to take care would be preserved. The literature demonstrated that the most efficient insurance contracts require some sharing of the loss between the insurer and the insured (Shavell, 1979). And insurers do, in fact, commonly share losses with insureds in various ways, including through deductibles, copayments, and other cost sharing methods (Kuperman, 2008; Pauly, 1968). Deductibles require insureds to pay a fixed amount “out of pocket” to cover insured losses before the insurance coverage kicks in to cover insured losses thereafter. Copayments typically require insureds to bear some fraction of each covered loss claim filed by an insured. Such cost-sharing strategies to reduce moral hazard are designed so that individuals have some “skin in the game.” Several examples of having “skin in the game” have been offered over the millennia. Hammurabi’s code, formulated nearly 4,000 years ago by the Babylonians, specified: “If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its construction firm, and the house which he has built collapses and causes the death of the owner of the house, that builder shall be put to death” (Harper, 1904, p. 111). Other examples include the Roman heuristic that engineers spend time sleeping under bridges they have built, to the maritime rule that the captain should be last to leave the ship when there is a risk of sinking.From these examples it is clear that the term, “skin in the game,” means having a significant commitment, share, or interest in a venture or activity. ‘Game’ is a metaphor for actions of all types, and ‘skin’ is a simile for being committed to something because of emotional, financial, psychological, or physical investments in a cause of action. The phrase implies being invested or involved in achieving an outcome. The thinking is that putting one’s own precious resources at risk where one can potentially lose something (whether it is some form of ownership, money, property, life, or respect) means that people have a greater stake in the success of the venture and are incentivized to exercise care and limit irresponsible risk-taking.Those not having skin in the game have nothing to lose and therefore may more easily walk away in large part because there are fewer negative consequences to them. When decision makers have skin in the game—when they share in the costs and benefits of their decisions that might affect others—they are more likely to make prudent decisions. Skin in the game is what is sometimes called an equity investment. Equity investors are owners and owners value their property. Equity investments do not have to be large to provide incentives that generate desirable responses. Several areas where skin in the game is important are now provided.InvestingBeginning in 2005, the Securities and Exchange Commission required fund manager investment status to be filed under a statement of additional information. Beyond the symbolic benefits of showing investors that a manager has some of his or her own money in the fund (i.e., some skin in the game), there are real and measurable advantages to having the portfolio manager in the investor pool. According to Morningstar, a well-regarded investment research and investment management firm, the more money a portfolio manager invests in a fund, the better the fund does (Benjamin, 2011). Of the funds at the highest manager investment level of more than $1 million, the average star rating is 3.5 and the average manager tenure is more than 12 years. Conversely, in funds where the manager has no money invested, the average star rating is 2.9 and the average tenure is 4.6 years.In a recent study Kinnel (2015) looked at mutual fund manager investment levels in their own funds as of 2009. He then looked at the performance of these actively-managed funds over the next five years and then measured each fund’s success rate, which he defined as funds that outperformed their investment category. The results showed that fund managers with a significant amount of his or her personal money (> $1 million) in the fund to do better than one with no investment at all. It is an extra incentive beyond keeping one’s job and getting more pay.Higher educationThe concept of skin in the game has also been applied to colleges and universities. For example, some universities require that faculty pay the first $50 or $100 of the cost to attend an academic conference. With this small fee, there are likely to be fewer requests to attend these “valuable” conferences. Having the faculty put some equity into the process almost surely reduces the number of boondoggle trips. In another education-related area Miller (2015) argues that President Obama’s plan for free community college will reduce the value of a college education while having an equity investment in higher education, even a small one, will provide an incentive for students to make sound decisions. Which courses should they take? How much effort should they put into their coursework? Should they attend class and pay attention? Their answers almost surely depend on whether they have equity in their education and how much. More importantly, current federal incentives reward colleges and universities for volume (number of students enrolled and associated loan and grant monies) yet federal policy has few, if any, consequences for institutions that leave students with mountains of student debt and defaulted loans. To assist these institutions in reducing excessive and unnecessary student borrowing and debt Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee released a Congressional white paper on March 23, 2015 that proposes giving colleges and universities some risk sharing (or skin in the game) in which they would be held partially accountable for financial risks to students and taxpayers (U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions, 2015). Under these proposals, the risk of enrolling a student would be shared among all those who finance a student’s education: the student, the federal government, and now, the institution. This would ensure that colleges and universities have a clear financial stake in their students’ success, debt, and ability to repay their taxpayer-subsidized student loans.Current and historical commentary on skin-in-the-game concepts and proposals often revolves around this idea. Former U.S. Secretary of Education Bill Bennett and coauthor, David Wilezol, wrote that each college should pay “… a fee for every one of its students who defaults on a student loan, or have a 10 to 20 percent equity stake in each loan that originates at its school” (2013, p. 54). Similarly, The Economist (2014) indicated that “If [universities] were made liable for a slice of unpaid student debts—say 10% or 20% of the total—they would have more skin in the game.” Support for this comes from a variety of higher education observers across the political spectrum from the right-of-center American Enterprise Institute and the U.S Chamber of Commerce to the Institute for Higher Education Policy.This would ensure that colleges and universities have a clear financial stake in their students’ success, debt, and ability to repay their taxpayer-subsidized student loans. It would encourage colleges and universities to establish appropriate admissions’ practices for at-risk or uncommitted students, motivate students to complete their degrees more quickly, and graduate students with less debt. Recent legislation sponsored by Senators Reed (D-RI), Durbin (D-IL), and Warren (D-MA) would expand this concept to some U.S. colleges that have high borrowing rates and high student loan default rates (Protect Student Borrowers, 2013).MortgagesEvery year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, through its Federal Housing Administration (FHA), insures billions of dollars in home mortgage loans made by private lenders, very often with low down payments. FHA mortgage insurance helps homebuyers with limited funds to obtain a home mortgage. Homebuyers with FHA-insured loans need to make a 3 percent contribution toward the purchase of the property and may finance some of the closing costs associated with the loan. As a result, an FHA-insured loan could equal nearly 100 percent of the property’s value or sales price—commonly called loan-to-value (or LTV) ratio.Generally, mortgages with higher LTV ratios (smaller down payments) are riskier than mortgages with lower LTV ratios and a substantial body of economic research indicates that loan-to-value (or LTV) ratio is one of the most important factors when estimating the risk level associated with individual mortgages. For example, the U.S. Government Accounting Office (2005) reviewed 45 economic research papers that examined multiple factors that could be important; of these, 37 examined if LTV ratio was important. Almost all of these papers (35) found the LTV ratio of a mortgage important when estimating the risk level associated with individual mortgages. One study found that the default rates for mortgages with an LTV ratio above 95 percent are three to four times higher than default rates for mortgages with an LTV ratio of 90 to 95 percent.More recently, Kelly (2008) analyzed a random sample of about 5,000 FHA insured single family mortgages endorsed in Fiscal Years 2000, 2001, and 2002, observed through September 30, 2006, and samples of about 1,000 FHA loans each from the Atlanta, Indianapolis, and Salt Lake City metropolitan statistical areas in the same time period. He found that borrowers who provide down payments from their own resources have significantly lower default propensities than do borrowers whose down payments come from relatives, government agencies, or non-profits. Borrowers with down payments from seller-funded non-profits, who make no down payment at all, have the highest default rates. Additionally, borrowers who do not make down payments from their own resources tend to have higher loss given default in the small subset of loans that had completed the property disposition process. Thus, relieving the buyer of the need to contribute cash to the purchase, via a gift from an uninvolved party, raises the claim rate by 40% to 50%. Relieving the buyer of the need to contribute cash to the purchase, by a “gift” from the seller that results in a higher loan amount, raises the claim rate by an additional 38% to 50%. The extra difference in claim rates for gifts from seller-funded nonprofits is broadly consistent with an equity-based explanation, as a 25% increase in claims for a 3% decrease in equity. This research does make clear that, for whatever reason, borrowers with no “skin in the game” (i.e., aid recipients) are higher credit risks than comparable buyers who bring cash to the transaction. This research is consistent with that reported by James (2010) and Demiroglu and James (2012). In short, skin in the game matters.Habitat for HumanityThe premier example of the importance of skin in the game is Habitat for Humanity which was founded in 1976 and has more than 400 U.S. affiliates and operates in more than 90 countries. It is dedicated to eliminating substandard housing and providing low-income families with the joy and dignity of homeownership. “Sweat equity” is the single most important strategy Habitat uses to empower future homeowner families and one of the features that sets it apart from other affordable housing providers. Sweat equity to refer to the hours of labor their homeowners dedicate to building their homes and the homes of their neighbors, as well as the time they spend investing in their own self-improvement. Most importantly, by going beyond a mere financial investment in their property and physically working alongside other volunteers and neighbors, Habitat homeowners gain a greater sense of self-worth and become more personally invested in their community (Habitat for Humanity of Broward, 2015).Sweat equity reduces the amount of paid labor needed for a house, which in turn helps reduce costs. Having the involvement of the families themselves adds a sense of ownership to the building process, and educates families on an entirely different level (Garafolo, 1997). Partner families are also expected to pay it forward and assist others in building their homes. Furthermore, those who receive assistance from Habitat are given the opportunity to improve their financial skills. Budget counseling, homeowner maintenance, and even predatory-lending awareness issues are addressed in offered courses. These programs are run in conjunction with home construction in order to guide new homeowners to a financially stable future. A study commissioned by the Dallas branch of Habitat, found that foreclosures in Habitat’s Dallas market were less than 2% in 2010. Although the report only looked at the Dallas office of Habitat, the findings mirror those found in other Habitat offices across the country, the organization says (Wotapka, 2011).As can be seen in many of these examples, some sort of exchange is illustrated (e.g., down payment for a house; sweat equity for a home). On an interpersonal level, in some cases an immediate exchange for aid and assistance may not always be feasible. In these cases it may be important to highlight that the helper expects some recompense in the future. This pay back with its accompanying sense of obligation and indebtedness is more formally known as reciprocity and it is a powerful influence mechanism to which human cultures subscribe (Gouldner, 1960). Indeed, world-renowned paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey indicated “unequivocally that “We are human because our ancestors learned to share their food and their skills in an honored network of obligation” (Leakey & Lewin, 1978, p.16). Thus, to maximize the likelihood that the favor doer will be paid back in the future he/she should invoke the reciprocity rule and not diminish the help given. These subtle reminders should occur as part of a natural and equitable reciprocal arrangement. SummaryFor thousands of years various religious, moral, philosophical, and cultural perspectives have appealed powerfully to individual’s humanitarian impulses and have encouraged helping others—particularly the less fortunate. Over the last 40 or so years calls for this has been amplified in what some call a “compassion boom” (Berland, 2010; Hoang, 2015). This movement is almost universally accepted as virtuous and constructive and calls for altruism, and other prosocial acts have been lionized. In some cases such help has been interpreted as a duty or obligation. For example, noted moral philosopher, Peter Singer, makes a compelling case that individuals should be doing much more to aid the needy than they are (Singer, 2015). Singer’s main principle first stated in 1972 is that “if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it” (p. 231). Such a position has been promoted by many modern philosophers, theologians, and social scientists who often assume that aiding the disadvantaged is an absolute good. Help, it is said, can be experienced as an expression of meaningful belongingness between the beneficiary and the benefactor, eliciting positive feelings, favorable self-perceptions, and gratitude (Fisher et al., 1982). Although giving behavior is said to benefit givers and takers and organizations, and ardently praised in the abstract by leaders, it often comes at the expense of those who receive it.The receipt of aid constitutes a mixed blessing and often those helped may experience “the curse of aid” (Djankov, Montalvo & Reynal-Querol, 2008, p. 169). The worthy aims of altruism and other prosocial behavior may have long term socially detrimental effects and that initiatives to engage in good acts are sometimes problematic (Kalman, 2010). A more refined analysis that examines both the possible positive and negative effects of aiding the needy is required. Usually, helping is looked at?from an idealistic perspective and as such it is more a reflection of what individuals would like it to be and not necessarily reflective of what could happen. What is needed is not such a one-sided perspective but a search for unintended consequences that may create surprising, unfortunate, and counterproductive effects. Indeed, a growing body of research indicates that virtues can wreak havoc. Experiments by economists in The Netherlands have demonstrated the dark side of fairness (Abbink & Sadrieh, 2009); psychology professors have discovered how passion for work can become an unhealthy obsession (Seguin-Levesque, Laliberte, Pelletier, Blanchard, & Vallerand, 2003); and a political science professor researching the marksmanship of female marines showed how aiming for excellence can backfire (Archer, 2010). Moreover, virtuous behavior may have both positive and negative effects depending on levels. For instance, Grant and Schwartz (2011) noted that excessive levels of numerous virtues often create problematic situations. Research on helping has focused primarily on the persons who give the help. In comparison, very little research has been done on recipients of help and the consequences of their receiving help. Although positive outcomes frequently occur following aid, unhelpful effects may also ensue including loss of independence and a sense of indebtedness (Greenberg, 1980), a loss of freedom and chronic dependency on others (Nadler & Fisher, 1986), and aversive psychological states such as “reactance” (Brehm, 1966). Helping others is indeed a real virtue but individuals and firms must not hold that it is beyond question, scrutiny, or criticism but should approach the idea of giving with a healthy dose of mindfulness lest they become blind to the ways virtues sometimes hurt people. We recognize that few people have bad intentions and agree with noted poet and literary critic, T. S. Eliot, who said that “Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions” (n.d.). However, good intentions alone are not enough to make actions moral. This paper discusses how helping others can exact an unintended toll on the needy and how the failure to recognize this represents a disservice to the truth. It appears that every action and decision has unintended consequences. Because of its pervasiveness Levitt and Dubner (2009) have elevated unintended consequences to the status of a law (“… one of the most powerful laws in the universe …”, p. XIV). Every action has both seen and unseen consequences, obvious and not so obvious effects, positive and negative, and short and long-term outcomes. Good intentions do not automatically lead to moral actions. Individuals must consider the possible negative consequences before they give and help others. If individuals’ interventions cause more harm than good, then they are morally questionable regardless of the loftiness of their intentions. Just because kindness and compassion may appear praiseworthy people must consider the possible harm that their proposed aid may cause. Individuals and organizations must stop implementing programs and activities that can be shown to create more injury than good. Whether the long term assistance and help come from government, parents, a rich uncle, or the lottery, the effect is the same—people will make no effort to become self-sufficient. Those who are dependent have few choices; they must accept whatever is “given” to them. An inconvenient truth illustrated here is that giving people something for nothing, that is, providing unearned advantages not contingent on accomplishment, achievement, or merit fuels the likelihood that such individuals will become increasingly dependent, entitled, lazy, and privileged. Daniels (2001) has coined the aphorism, “If you give people something for nothing, you make them good for nothing” (p. 77), to describe the harmful effects of sustained unearned aid.The Habitat for Humanity model suggested here appears to be consistent with Nadler’s model of intergroup helping (Nadler, 1997, 1998, 2002; Nadler & Halabi, 2006), which distinguishes between autonomy-oriented and dependency-oriented help. The Habitat model, which emphasizes autonomy-oriented assistance, appears to be consistent with two classic maxims that are commonly supported: 1) “Give a man [sic] a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man [sic] to fish and you feed him for a lifetime;” and 2) “Give a hand up, not a handout.” Unfortunately, “helping people help themselves” rhetoric simply takes the idea as being the same as “helping people” and there is often little or no suspicion that assistance can be unhelpful in the sense of overriding or undercutting self-help and is thus quite antithetical to helping people help themselves. We believe that autonomy-oriented assistance can restore an aid recipient’s agency. In the absence of meaningful behavior on the recipient’s part to earn some benefits, long term and repeated charity (not cases of crisis relief) is likely to impede rather than promote growth, autonomy, and development. When there is no apparent link between behavior and rewards, individuals may begin to believe that they deserve rewards regardless of how they perform. Having skin in the game makes the connection between performance and rewards more noticeable and reduces the erosion of the aid recipient’s work ethic and problematic feelings of entitlement and dependency.ReferencesAbbink, K., & Sadrieh, A. (2009). The pleasure of being nasty. Economics Letters, 105(3), 306-308. Acharya, V. V., Richardson, M., Van Nieuwerburgh, S., & White, L. J. (2011). Guaranteed to fail. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Alvarez, K., & van Leeuwen, E. (2011). To teach or to tell? Consequences of receiving help from experts and peers. European Journal of Social Psychology, 41(3), 397-402.Andreoni, J. (1990). Impure altruism and donations to public goods—a theory of warm glowgiving. Economic Journal, 100(401), 464-477.Archer, E. (2010, March 31). You Shoot Like a Girl: Stereotype Threat and Marksmanship Performance in the U.S. Marine Corps. Paper presented at Western Political Science Association 2010 Annual Meeting. Available at SSRN: , K. (2010). 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