If many people personally believe in giving, but assume that others don’t, the whole norm in a group or a company can shift away from giving. “Ideas can have profound effects even when they are false—when they are nothing more than ideology,” writes the psychologist Barry Schwartz. “These effects can arise because sometimes when people act on the basis of ideology, they inadvertently arrange the very conditions that bring reality into correspondence with the ideology.” When people assume that others aren’t givers, they act and speak in ways that discourage others from giving, creating a
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