Most Americans believe that it is very important for them to be a generous person. Yet almost half did not give to charity in the past year, and less than a quarter gave more than $500.

That’s the latest findings in a new Science of Generosity survey. An even more disconcerting discovery is that quarter of Americans were neutral on the importance of generosity and 10 percent disagreed that generosity was not a very important quality.

As David Briggs of the Association of Religion Data Archives notes,

What we end up with is a nation where a relatively few people give freely and abundantly, while most of us give little or nothing, Patricia Snell Herzog and Heather E. Price report in their new book,“American Generosity: Who Gives and Why.”

The two researchers, co-investigators with theScience of Generosity Initiativeat the University of Notre Dame, delve into the survey findings and scores of personal interviews to present a portrait of the state of American giving.

It is often not an attractive picture.

Another surprising result is that many Americans living below the poverty line (about 30 percent) tend to rather generous.

Those most in need were twice as likely as non-poor Americans to donate up to 1 percent of their e. For contributions above 1 percent, there were no differences in the percentage of e given for people above and below the poverty level.

The findings demonstrate “the tremendous generosity that can be found among those with the least financial resources and the overall thinness of generosity among many with more financial resources,” Herzog and Price state.

The results also illustrate a wide divide in our understanding of and empathy for those most in need.

People in poverty have firsthand knowledge of their day-to-day struggles, which often involve choices such as putting food on the table vs. paying the rent. So they are aware that giving even a little can make a huge difference in the lives of their neighbors.