You might think that sponsorship websites such as JustGiving are merely a convenient tool for charitable giving, but you would be wrong. According to scientists, they are actually a new arena of chivalry, where a daily “generosity tournament” is fought between men trying to outdo each other in the hope of winning the favour of women.
Researchers from University College London found that when attractive women seek sponsorship, men engage in competitive giving, ratcheting up their donations in an attempt to outdo the previous offering.
There was no such effect, however, when the sexes were reversed.
The study, published in the journal Current Biology, took advantage of the fact that sponsorship websites allow you to see pictures of the people receiving the money and what previous people had given.
Nichola Raihani and her colleagues looked at more than 2,500 different sponsorship pages and singled out those where a man had made a large donation, which was defined as being both twice as much as the previous average for the page and exceeding £50.
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The researchers found that if the page was hosted by a woman rated as attractive and a man had made a large donation, the next man tended, on average, to give £40 more.
Dr Raihani said she was surprised that the link was so clear. “It was amazing. We make predictions as scientists, but it’s not often you find such a perfect natural forum for an experiment, and also one where the data so clearly matches up.”
She said that less attractive women should not be disheartened: “One thing we found to be a strong predictor of how attractive you are is whether you are smiling or not. People who were smiling were rated as much more attractive.”
For men? Maybe get a female friend to ask for money on your behalf.