Effective Altruism Test

Effective altruism (EA) is both a philosophical project and a social movement organized around a practical question: how can people use limited time, money, skills, and influence to help others as much as possible? It emerged during the late 2000s and early 2010s around evidence-based charity evaluation, ethical arguments for giving, and research into high-impact careers.

EA argues that good intentions are not enough because interventions differ enormously in effectiveness. A donation that funds a highly cost-effective health programme may produce substantially more benefit than the same donation to a familiar but expensive local project. Effective altruists therefore compare outcomes, costs, evidential strength, opportunity costs, and what would have happened without their contribution.

Cause prioritization is central to the movement. Problems are commonly compared by their scale, neglectedness, and tractability: how large the problem is, how few resources it currently receives, and whether additional effort can make progress. This approach encourages cause neutrality—the willingness to support whichever cause appears most effective rather than beginning with a fixed loyalty.

Impartiality is another influential principle. A person's nationality, proximity, or familiarity should not by itself determine the value of that person's welfare. Many effective altruists extend this reasoning to nonhuman animals and future generations. Consequently, prominent EA cause areas include global health and development, farmed-animal welfare, pandemic prevention, nuclear security, and risks from advanced artificial intelligence.

EA applies its reasoning to careers as well as donations. People may pursue direct work on a pressing problem, conduct research, build useful organizations, advocate for policy, or develop scarce skills. Some practice “earning to give,” choosing well-paid work partly so they can donate more. The relevant question is counterfactual impact: how much additional good occurs because this person chose one path rather than another?

The movement also encourages substantial and deliberate giving. Giving What We Can invites members to pledge at least 10% of their income to organizations they believe can use it most effectively. The pledge is influential but not required for identifying with EA, and the movement does not prescribe one mandatory level of personal sacrifice.

EA presents its conclusions as revisable rather than doctrinal. Its scientific mindset emphasizes uncertainty, probabilistic reasoning, intellectual openness, criticism, and changing course when better evidence appears. This can lead priorities to shift over time and creates internal disagreements about measurement, systemic change, moral uncertainty, longtermism, and the risks of concentrating philanthropic influence.

At its broadest, effective altruism does not require adherence to utilitarianism or any particular cause. Its common denominator is an unusually demanding concern with effectiveness: charitable choices should be compared, assumptions should be tested, and resources should be directed toward actions expected to produce the greatest positive impact.

This test cannot provide a definitive or clinical assessment of your political or moral opinions. It is an informational quiz designed to estimate agreement with themes associated with the Effective Altruism movement. For more information about any of our online tests and quizzes, please consult our Terms of Service.

References

• 80,000 Hours. (n.d.). 80,000 Hours: How to make a difference with your career. Retrieved September 3, 2026, from https://80000hours.org/
• Centre for Effective Altruism. (n.d.-a). CEA's guiding principles. Retrieved September 3, 2026, from https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/ceas-guiding-principles
• Centre for Effective Altruism. (n.d.-b). Core EA principles. Retrieved September 3, 2026, from https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/core-principles
• Effective Altruism. (n.d.). What is effective altruism? Retrieved September 3, 2026, from https://www.effectivealtruism.org/
• Giving What We Can. (n.d.). The 10% pledge. Retrieved September 3, 2026, from https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge
• MacAskill, W. (2015). Doing good better: How effective altruism can help you make a difference. Avery.