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Altruism - Psychology

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Humans are capable of displaying many behaviours in the different situations they find themselves or see others in. In society, many people have come across situations where help is needed, and proceed to help, even if they do not know who the other person is. This is prosocial behaviour – any behaviour with the intention of helping or benefitting others. A subgroup of prosocial behaviour is altruism, which is helping others with some sort of risk to yourself (such as time, or getting hurt) and not seeking personal gains or rewards (Carter and Grivas, 2005). There is no definite purpose of altruism, but evolutionists theorize that it relates to helping others to preserve our genes.

However, altruism doesn’t just occur spontaneously; the action of helping others without any self-benefit only takes place under certain circumstances. The cost-benefit analysis is when the helper considers the cost (such as their own personal health or time) and benefit (feeling good about themself for helping people) of doing and not doing the behaviour. They will usually be more likely to proceed with the behaviour when the benefit outweighs the cost. Another factor affecting helping behaviour could be personal influences such as feelings and mood. If the person feels guilty for not doing something, they will most likely do whatever it takes to be able to restore a positive view from others and reduce our own personal guilt. When someone is in a happy mood, they are more likely to help others to retain that good feeling of what helping others can do, regardless of what made them happy. Most importantly, situational factors such as interpreting and noticing the situation as one that needs help then taking responsibility for helping play a significant role in altruistic behaviour.

Sometimes, prosocial and altruistic behaviour get confused between. While both are intentional and voluntary, there is one major difference, altruism is purely about the person or group they are helping and the motive behind it. A prosocial act would be helping someone pick up their things if they dropped them. This act has no inconvenience to the helper. An act of altruism would be going to Africa to help build schools and houses and help the poor people who live there with your own money and the money you raise/d, since you don’t get paid for helping others overseas. This counts as an altruistic behaviour because the motive behind going to Africa would only be to benefit those who need help and it causes inconvenience to the helper by using most or all the money they have.

On March 13th, 1964, Kitty Genovese was stabbed and raped numerous times in front of her apartment . She screamed for help and awoke all her 38 neighbours, but they just stood at their windows for as long as 35 minutes and watched the crime take place rather than help (Carter and Grivas, 2005). Although it was quite evident that Kitty’s neighbours understood the situation as being one where Kitty’s life was in danger, taking responsibility for helping was probably the main reason why no one helped. This is explained by the bystander effect and the diffusion of responsibility. The bystander effect refers to the fact that when there is a larger group of people present, the less likely someone is going to help a person in distress. This is linked to the diffusion of responsibility, where when there are more people present, it is believed that others are going to help so there is less responsibility to take part in helping.

Wouldn’t a world that was more altruistic be better? Not necessarily. The theory of creating an altruistic society can pose various issues and concerns which breach the ethical guidelines for psychological research. The right to withdraw and volunteer at any given time would be eliminated as the ‘law’ would be to help everyone in any possibly distressing situation. This can also increase the risk of people getting themselves hurt in an extreme situation where anyone’s lives are at stake. Creating an altruistic society would be completely unethical because of these two factors.

Altruism has many diverse definitions across the world, but the ultimate behaviour is the same – helping others for their benefit rather than your own. Altruistic behaviours, although they are not as common as general helping behaviour, has many benefits that come with it. It can lower the distress or anxiety of another person and bring forth positive feelings in both the helper and the person who needs help. It can save the lives of many people without fully knowing it. It can be thought of as giving back to others unselfishly, and bring a purpose or sense of direction to the person helping. So not only does altruistic behaviours help the person receiving, but it also helps the person giving.

Reference
Carter, L & Grivas, J 2005, Psychology stage 1, John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd., Queensland.

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