Altruism

• John Holmes: '"There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up"'
• Altruism


  A motive to increase another's welfare without conscious regard for one's self-interests
• Altruism


  Selfishness in reverse
• An altruistic person is concerned and helpful even when no benefits are offered or expected in return
• Three Complementary Theories of Altruism

  • Social Exchange theory
  • Social Norms
  • Evolutionary Psychology
• Social Exchange Theory


  Theory that human interactions are transactions that aim to maximize one's rewards and minimize one's costs
• Social Exchange Theory

  Guided by "social economics"
• Helping as disguised self interest

  Egoism - a motive (supposedly underlying all behavior) to increase one's own welfare
• Empathy as a source of genuine altruism

  Egoistic and Altruistic routes to helping
• Social Norms


  Often we help others not because we have consciously calculated that such behaviors are in our self-interest but simply because something tells us we ought to
• Reciprocity norm


  An expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them
• Social responsibility norm

  An expectation that people will help those who need help, without regard to future exchanges
• Evolutionary Psychology


  Contends that the essence of life is gene survival
• Kin protection


  Kin Selection - the idea that evolution has selected altruism toward one's close relatives to enhance the survival of mutually shared genes
• Situational Influences on Helping

  • Number of Bystanders
  • Helping when someone else does
  • Time pressures
• Helping process

  1. Noticing

  2. Interpreting

  3. Assuming Responsibility
• Personal Influences on Helping

  • Feelings (Guilt, Negative Mood, Exceptions to the feel bad-do good, Feel good, Do good)
  • Personality traits
  • Religiosity
• Whom do we help?

  • Gender
  • Similarity
• How we increase helping?

  • Undoing the restraints on helping (Reduce ambiguity, increase responsibility, Guilt and concern for self-image, door-in-the-face technique)
  • Socializing Altruism (Teaching Moral Inclusion, Moral Exclusion)
  • Modeling Altruism (Attributing helpful behavior to altruistic motives, Overjustification effect)