Human Beings Enjoy Giving – But to Whom?
“Human beings enjoy giving, when it is their own choice to give”.
This is one of the assumptions of Nonviolent Communication that I find both beautiful and challenging. Beautiful, because it points towards something many of us have experienced: giving can feel wonderful. When we freely contribute to another person’s well-being, we may experience joy, meaning, connection and satisfaction. There is something deeply nourishing about knowing that our actions make a difference.
At the same time, I think the assumption is challenging because it raises a question:
Do human beings actually enjoy giving to everyone?
Or is our willingness to give influenced by who is receiving?
Nonviolent Communication (NVC) offers a powerful way to understand ourselves and others. For many, it’s a profound shift – helping us see what’s behind our reactions and opening the door to more honest, compassionate connection. At the same time, no model can capture the full complexity of being human.
In this blog series, I want to gently explore some key NVC ideas – not to challenge them, but to expand them by placing them in a wider context that includes how we grow and develop, how our brains and bodies function, how culture shapes us, and how the systems we live in influence our choices. My intention is to keep the heart of NVC intact while adding a bit more depth and perspective.
The NVC approach
In NVC, contribution is understood as a universal human need. We have the capacity to enjoy making a difference in the lives of others. When giving is freely chosen, it can become what Marshall Rosenberg described as “a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart”. This is very different from giving out of fear, guilt, shame, duty or a desire to gain something.
When I contribute because I genuinely want to, several needs are often met at the same time: contribution, connection, belonging, care, and meaning. This is one reason Rosenberg placed such importance on choice. The intention is not to get people to do what we want, but to create the kind of connection in which people can willingly contribute because they see how their actions serve life.
There is something deeply attractive about this view. Most of us have experienced the difference between supporting someone because we genuinely want to and helping because we think we have an obligation.
But does this mean that human beings enjoy giving whenever they have the choice?
And an additional question arises:
Who do we choose to give to?
Our tribal minds
Human beings are social animals. Throughout our evolutionary history, belonging to a group has been closely connected to our survival. Our minds, therefore, tend to divide the social world into categories such as us and them. The groups may be based on family, tribe, nationality, religion, political identity, culture, football team, or simply people we perceive as similar to ourselves.
We are so wired towards group identities that it doesn’t take much to create an us and a them. In one experiment, people were divided into groups based on whether they preferred Klee or Kandinsky paintings. They never met their fellow group members and had nothing to gain from favouring their own group, yet they still tended to favour their group when allocating rewards.
This creates an interesting complication. We may have a strong capacity for care, generosity, and sacrifice, while simultaneously being much less inclined to extend those qualities equally to everyone. In fact, the same mechanisms that strengthen our care for members of our own group can sometimes strengthen hostility towards people outside it.
Research on oxytocin, for example, has challenged the popular idea of oxytocin as simply a “love” or “bonding hormone”. Some studies suggest that increased oxytocin can strengthen social bonding and prosocial behaviour towards members of one’s own group while, under some circumstances, increasing negative responses towards outsiders.
If this is true, then perhaps the question is not simply:
“Do human beings enjoy giving?”
but also:
“Who do human beings enjoy giving to?”
From universal need to selective expression
This does not necessarily contradict the NVC assumption. Perhaps the need to contribute is universal, while the way we express that need is shaped by our development, our culture, our relationships, and our sense of who belongs with us.
Even the most “enlightened” person might face a choice between contributing to someone they are deeply connected to and contributing to a stranger. Would we really expect them to experience the two choices in exactly the same way? Perhaps our capacity for contribution is universal, while our sense of responsibility and willingness to give remain influenced by relationships, belonging, and identification.
Interestingly, this may make some of us rather WEIRD. Research by cultural psychologist Joseph Henrich and colleagues suggests that people from Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic societies are unusual in the extent to which they extend trust and cooperation beyond close relationships – to strangers and even anonymous others.
This doesn’t mean that people in WEIRD societies have somehow escaped our tendency to distinguish between “us” and “them.” Rather, our cultural environment may have expanded the circle within which we expect ourselves to cooperate. Modern WEIRD societies have something previous human societies never had on anything like the same scale: the technological and institutional means to extend our circles of cooperation and concern across the entire planet.
And let’s not forget that our circle of concern can change depending on where we are and what is happening around us. I may deeply enjoy helping my family. I may willingly contribute to my friends. I may feel moved to support people in my community. But would I feel the same joy if the person receiving my contribution belonged to a group I strongly disliked? And what if my contribution to one group comes at the expense of another?
This becomes particularly relevant when we move beyond interpersonal relationships and look at societies. People can willingly give enormous amounts of time, money, energy and even their lives for their group. History is full of examples of extraordinary generosity towards the in-group alongside extraordinary cruelty towards the out-group. The capacity for contribution can therefore coexist with a very narrow circle of concern.
Is choice enough?
Another interesting question is hidden in the NVC assumption. It says that human beings enjoy giving when it is their own choice. This raises another question: how free are our choices?
Our choices are influenced by our needs as well as our upbringing, culture, identity, social environment, fears, beliefs and the groups with which we identify. We may have a choice in the sense that nobody is forcing us, while still being strongly influenced by factors we are hardly aware of. If I freely choose to give because “these are my people”, is that simply an expression of the universal need for contribution? Or is something more complex happening?
We can experience genuine joy in giving while simultaneously operating within a very limited circle of concern. This might help explain why generosity and tribalism can coexist so easily. A person can be extraordinarily generous – and at the same time, extraordinarily exclusive.
Expanding the circle
Maybe the developmental challenge is not to convince ourselves (or others) that we should contribute to everyone. Nor is it to deny the importance of our particular relationships and communities. Perhaps the challenge is to gradually expand our circle of concern – to increase the number of people whose well-being matters to us. This connects with the Levels of Needs.
From a more egocentric perspective, my attention naturally gravitates towards meeting my own needs. As my circle of identification expands, the needs of others become increasingly important – not only the people immediately around me, but larger communities and eventually humanity and the living world itself.
From this perspective, “giving” may remain the same human capacity, while the boundaries of who we include in our concern change.
The question then becomes less:
Do human beings enjoy giving?
and more:
How far can we expand our circle of concern while still experiencing giving as fulfilling? And how willing are we to make room for those whose circle of concern is narrower than ours?
Beyond “us” and “them”
There is perhaps an even deeper question here. What would happen if we could experience contribution not simply as something our group does for our group, but as participation in something larger?
I can give to my child because I love my child.
I can give to my community because I belong to it.
Can I also give to someone I will never meet, whose life is very different from mine? Can I care about people I don’t identify with? Can I contribute to the well-being of people whose values I strongly disagree with?
Perhaps these questions are not meant to be answered once and for all. They don’t tell us what the right position is or how we ought to behave. Instead, they can invite us to explore our own capacity for contribution. We can notice who we naturally want to support, where our generosity comes easily, and where it becomes more difficult. We can become curious about what arises in us when we encounter someone who seems unfamiliar, distant or even opposed to us.
At the same time, expanding our circle of care doesn’t have to mean caring less about those closest to us. Each opportunity to contribute is unique, and giving to one person does not necessarily take something away from another. We can remain deeply connected to our families, friends and communities while becoming increasingly open to contributing beyond those circles.
Perhaps the invitation is not to force ourselves to care about everyone equally. It is to notice where our circle ends – and occasionally wonder whether it could be a little wider.
And perhaps even more importantly: what happens when we become curious about those whose well-being currently lies just beyond our circle of concern?
If you’re interested in exploring NVC through a broader, more integrative lens, you’re very welcome to join the Needs Space platform or read more about it here.
Author:
Joachim Berggren
Joachim Berggren is a certified CNVC trainer. He has been a student of NVC since 2009 and has taught his understanding of NVC since 2010. He writes blog posts, offers workshops and hosts events about NVC, as well as offering individual sessions. He is passionate about and intrigued by exploring human connection and our capacity to grow and evolve as individuals and groups throughout our lifetimes.