Observaciones al proyecto de Código Orgánico General de Procesos presentado

one building to another, the soccer fans saw a runner slip on a grass bank, where he fell holding his ankle and screaming in pain. Would they help him?

It depended on the T-shirt that he was wearing. When he wore a plain T-shirt, only 33 percent helped. When he wore a Manchester United T-shirt, 92 percent helped. Yale psychologist Jack Dovidio calls this “activating a common identity.” When people share an identity with another

person, giving to that person takes on an otherish quality. If we help people who belong to our group, we’re also helping ourselves, as we’re making the group better off.*

A common identity was a key active ingredient behind the rapid growth of Freecycle, and the unusually high levels of giving. When Berkeley professor Robb Willer’s team compared Craigslist and Freecycle members, they were interested in the degree to which each group experienced

identification and cohesion. The more members identified, the more they saw Craigslist or Freecycle as an important part of their self-images, as reflecting their core values. The more cohesion members reported, the more they felt part of a meaningful Craigslist or Freecycle community. Would members experience greater identification and cohesion with Craigslist or Freecycle?

The answer depends on how much a member has received from the site. For members who received or bought few items, there were no differences in identification and cohesion between Craigslist and Freecycle. People were equally attached and connected to both sites. But for members who received or bought many items, there were stark differences: members reported substantially greater identification and cohesion with Freecycle than Craigslist. This was true even after

accounting for members’ tendencies toward giving: regardless of whether they were givers or not, members who participated frequently felt more attached to Freecycle than to Craigslist. Why would people feel more identified and connected with a community where they give freely rather than matching evenly?

Willer’s team argues that for two central reasons receiving is a fundamentally different

experience in generalized giving and direct matching systems. The first distinction lies in the terms of the exchange. In direct matching, the exchange is an economic transaction. When members buy an item on Craigslist, they know that sellers are typically trying to maximize their own gains with little

concern for buyers’ interests. In contrast, in generalized giving, givers aren’t getting anything tangible back from the recipients. When members receive an item on Freecycle, they’re accepting a gift from a giver with no strings attached. According to Willer’s team, this “suggests that the giver is motivated to act in the interest of the recipient rather than in his or her own self-interest,” which “communicates a regard for the recipient beyond the instrumental value attached to the item itself.” In comparison with an economic transaction, a gift is value-laden.

The second distinction has to do with who’s responsible for the benefits you receive. When you buy on Craigslist, if you receive an item at a good price, you can chalk it up to your savvy as a

negotiator or the kindness (or nạveté) of an individual seller. You’re exchanging back and forth with another individual; you’re not getting anything from the Craigslist community. “As a result,

participants in direct exchange will be less inclined to identify with the group because they will be less likely to derive the emotional experience of group membership,” Willer’s team writes. In generalized giving, on the other hand, the community is the source of the gifts you receive. An effective system of generalized giving typically involves cycles of exchange with the following structure: person A gives to person B, who gives to person C. When Freecycle members receive multiple items from different people, they attribute the benefits to the whole group, not to individual

members.

Together, these two forces facilitate the development of a bond with Freecycle. Instead of buying an item from another person, people feel that they’re receiving gifts from a community. The gratitude and goodwill generated means that they begin to identify with the community, seeing themselves as Freecycle members. Once this identification happens, people are willing to give freely to anyone who shares the Freecycle identity. This extends their willingness to give across the whole Freecycle

community, spurring members to offer items that they no longer need in response to requests when they can help. By giving away things they don’t want, takers can feel like they’re not losing anything of value, yet maintain the norm of giving so they can still get free stuff when they want it. For

matchers, because there’s no way to pay it back, paying it forward is the next best thing—especially since they’re helping people just like themselves. This is what happened with the parents who gave away baby supplies: they restored their sense of a reciprocal, even exchange by donating items they no longer needed to fellow parents in similar situations.

People are motivated to give to others when they identify as part of a common community. But not all individuals and groups are equally likely to attract this type of identification. There’s something else about the Freecycle community that fosters identification—and it’s a factor well understood by Adam Rifkin.