Taxing Credulity
Contrary to the common notion that paying taxes can be a painful experience, researchers at the University of Oregon say the practice actually may trigger feelings of satisfaction and happiness.
“Paying taxes can make citizens happy,” Ulrich Mayr, a professor of psychology, said in a release accompanying the study in the Friday issue of Science.
How was this determined?
Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology, the researchers observed the brain activity of 19 women who were given a balance of $100 each. The researchers created the effect of taxation by making mandatory withdrawals from their account. The withdrawn money was actually sent to a food bank’s account.
Participants also made additional choices about whether to give away more money or keep it for themselves.
The study found that two reward-related areas of the brain — the caudate nucleus and the nucleus accumbens — lit up during the taxation test. These areas are typically activated when a person experiences feelings of satisfaction, as they do after having eaten a meal.
“The fact that mandatory transfers to a charity elicit activity in reward-related areas suggests that even mandatory taxation can produce satisfaction for taxpayers,” the study said.
When the participants voluntarily gave the charity more money, the activation area was larger — a finding that, according to the researchers, sheds light on why people make donations.
Complaints…
(1) The $100 wasn’t theirs to start with—was not the fruit of the their labor, etc. Giving people a little money and then taking some of it away again is, well, giving people some money … but less than maybe they thought they were going to get at first. How is that like a tax?
(2) The money was sent to a food bank to feed the hungry. That’s nice! But the idea that this simulates what taxes generally fund strains credulity. Why not tell people instead that the money is going to buy bombs that will incidentally kill civilians in humanitarian wars? Or that it is going to a subsidy for a farmer with an income four times the subject’s? That would be rather more realistic.
(3) Even if our taxes flow exclusively to food banks and adopt-a-puppy programs and we do get some lift out of this, is it greater than the lift we would have gotten from the money otherwise? They show that giving money away voluntarily does even more for folks. So how does giving money away measure up to eating a piece of chocolate cake, basking on a beach on the Italian coast, opening the box with your new iPhone in it? Until we know, we know nothing much.
Robin Hanson on bunk neuroscience narratives, here.
5 Comments so far
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finally, someone with sense on this story! thanks!
Maybe the test didn’t use the best questions, but you’re arguing policy against emotion. It’s entirely likely that people with the general view of “taxes are too high” you express can still experience a momentary feeling of satisfaction at being in the enviable position of having to be taxes at all as well as the satisfaction of contributing to the common weal. It’s all part of what Joseph Campbell meant when he talked about “participating joyfully in the sorrows of the world.”
I do feel a sense of relief and euphoria when I my taxes:
“Hurrah! that nightmare is over for another year!”
“Hurrah! I get to not go to jail!”
Other than such damning with such faint praise, I really can’t say much in favour of the government stealing my money at gunpoint.
HI!
Thank-you for your service, everything has arrived without any hiccups.
Quoting “I do feel a sense of relief and euphoria when I my taxes”. That is what I thought I was going to read in the actual blog post, Jake. It is a good point, but there is a difference between joy of something wonderful and relief that death has been postponed.
I think Will is right that the methodology is totally flawed. While I do believe that for most of us, mpney doesn’t buy happiness, paying taxes at best is probably neutral (for people who feel it is their civic duty and recognize that the money does go to a lot of useful things) and at worst reduces happiness (for those people who see waste, wars, etc. as the major end use of their taxes).
It is interesting to note the difference between voluntarily giving money to a good cause and having it taken away. I would be interested to see a study with three groups:
Group 1 is given $100.
Group 2 is given $100 and $25 is taken away for a food bank (not for government)
Group 3 is given $100 and is given the option of keeping it all or placing an amount in a donation box (in anonymity where there can be no guilt or peer pressure) on the way out of the room.
I suspect (no science here) that it is the voluntary giving that brings the most happiness and the good cause nature of the donation that brings a small amount.