The Right Thing Anthropology

As our modern society develops, people’s cultural values start to alter between altruism to self-interest depending on what benefits them the most. In the article “The Wrong Way to Get People to Do the Right Thing”, Kohn explains that people are offering help not because of intrinsic factors but through extrinsic rewards. Through Kohn’s effective claims and related sources, they show enough evidence that people’s desire to help others will diminish if rewards were to be removed.

Humans are prenatally motivated to help those around us due to its evolutionary benefits that our species has a better chance of survival if all cooperate. Humans can also be nurtured to exhibit altruistic behavior through good parenting. Although most of the population agrees that altruism benefits society, scientific research has shown that even those who believe they are altruistic are not when they are put in situations which calls for selfless behavior. One phenomena that refutes the claim that most of the population strives for selfless behavior is known as the bystander effect. The bystander effect is when a person feels less responsible for doing selfless acts when they are in an environment of a group of

For instance, giving money to the National Federation of the Blind because I have an eye condition or volunteering at an animal shelter because I love animals. While these acts are definitely commendable, I’ve learned that they aren’t what effective altruism is about. These acts would be considered “misguided grounds for giving” (86). Effective altruism is about doing the most good by helping the most people who need the most help. Singer raises an interesting point that I hadn’t thought of before; aiding poverty in third world countries will have more of an impact than aiding poverty in America because poverty in America is still relatively more affluent than poverty in third world countries. Which is challenging because as I’ve said before, part of human nature is to want to help the people and causes that you have a bond with. If you choose to be an effective altruist, you need to have perspective on what will do the most good. You must see the world objectively and intellectually. For example, “not to donate a kidney to someone in need is to value one’s own life at four thousand times that of a stranger” (87). However, my own sense of community still stands strong. I grew up in a small town on a small island where traits like empathy and passion were held above objectivity and intellect. Therefore, while this book raises logical points about how we should view the world,

In many instances, people will not have the motivation or incentive to benefit a charity unless they get something out of it. Most people believe this to be a selfish act. Why can't someone do something nice for the community and not expect anything in return? Offering incentives for charitable acts is a easy way to bribe people, but sends a morally wrong and selfish message.

1. Why is the idea of disappearing natives a myth? Use a specific quote from the text to support this.

Today, we have a growing number of unfortunate individuals within our society that need our help, and with that increasing number our charities and nonprofit organizations need help. A nonprofit organization is an organization with the purpose of which is something other than making a profit. A charity is voluntarily giving such like money to the ones in need. With a wide variety of choices to pick from to help the unfortunate they also need help in choosing who to donate too. In an article "Where Does All the Money Go? An Investigation of Donation Filtration" by Saher Shaikh and Carolan McLarney, they will remind us that it 's never too early to teach one to do a good deed. On the other hand, authors Christopher Blattman, and Paul Niehaus write "Show them the Money: Why Giving Cash Helps Alleviate Poverty," in this article they ponder if giving livestock such like food is better for the needy than giving cash to help them get by. There are many families that wouldn’t mind receiving the food assistance, there are many who need the financial help. As these authors point out helping the needy can be a big task to take on with a big accomplishment to fill, and now there are many choices to donate too, but with the help of today’s society that accomplishment of helping the needy can be met.

Iwashita sets up his point in his expounding on the 2 distinct societies and how they function. Inside the motion picture "Gung Ho" you can see that the inspiration for the specialists are totally unique in such a large number of ways. For the Japanese their inspiration was even more a self-inspiration, and not to disgrace their families and friends. They worked their hardest in light of the fact that if disgrace was conveyed to organization they would lose their employments, and the organization would close down. On the off chance that disgrace was conveyed to their families the entire family would be looked downward on by everybody, and conceivable out threw. For the Americans the inspiration in my opnion was exclusively money related based. The cash made everything else less

When I first attended college at SUNY Oswego I thought I knew exactly what I was going to do and who I be, but of course, I was wrong. I initially wanted to become a zoologist and work with animals, while studying their behaviors at the same time, but as fate allowed my interests in that field quickly deterred shortly after attending my first year of college. During my sophomore year, I took an anthropology course for a general education requirement. I had little knowledge of what anthropology was or what an anthropologist did, but I quickly fell in love with the field and all the concepts that are integrated into the anthropology courses. By studying anthropology, I was introduced to one of the hardest classes that I have ever had the opportunity

Over 70 years ago, Hartshorne and May (1928) concluded that pro-social actions are largely situationally determined rather than the result of enduring personal characteristic. This led to the conventional wisdom that dispositional variable are weak and unrealiable predictors of helping and altruism, further, when interest in helping was rekinded in the late 1960s and early1970s (Dovidio, 1984), the research findings were consistent

The experimenter would smile or remain neutral to passersby who were alone and asked if they would participate in an investigation (Vrugt & Vet, 2009). There was an observer off to the side recording if the participant would smile or remain neutral. The results showed that 50.4% of the participants who were smiled at would return a smile (Vrugt & Vet, 2009). If participants were given a neutral expression, only 33.3% of participants smiled at the experimenters (Vrugt & Vet, 2009). Further, 31% of the participants who smiled agreed to help in the investigation and only 23% of those who did not smile helped with the investigation (Vrugt & Vet, 2009). In order to broaden the understanding of reciprocity, this study set out to see if creating a positive emotional feeling would cause people to feel like they needed to return a favor. The results show a strong support of the hypothesis that people are more likely to help even if the gift given is a simple smile (Vrugt & Vet, 2009). Moving away from a simple gesture to a physical gift, researchers Whatley,Webster, Smith, and Rhodes (1999) studied how much reciprocation is tied to public or private consequences and if having received a gift further impacts reciprocation in those situations. Researchers believed that they would see

For it is without payment that the core meaning of selfless giving is explored. Through discovery one’s perspective on giving is personalized and sentimental aspects of one’s life is also given into their society. Although my philosophy on giving has many roots its focus is simple. What puts meaning into our actions is not necessarily our actions but our intentions with those actions. If the focus of giving back to society is for its betterment, physically giving back to society won’t have as much of impact on as giving back to society with love. And as long as the service provided is genuine, I believe giving should not be limited solely traditional acts like donating

During the second week of the new year, Mrs. Thompson’s language arts classes conducted an experiment in order to demonstrate the contagious nature of kind acts. To accomplish this, they received slips of paper from Mrs. Thompson that could be transferred to recipients of kind acts to be redistributed. This produced a continuous cycle of kind acts that is still in effect, which provides the world with an example of the contagious behavior of acts of kindness.

Knowledge and Ethics in Anthropology: Obligations and Requirements, edited by Lissette Josephides broadly discuss the epistemological and ethical elements that are involved in the field of anthropology. The book is largely inspiring in Marilyn Strathern’s work, challenging and debating different aspect of her contribution to the field.

Throughout all cultures of the world, one common characteristic can be found- kindness, and the willingness to help others in all situations. People all around are motivated to do good for different reasons. In the early 1600s-1750s, the Puritan settlers in America believed in a strong work ethic, and that doing good would benefit a person in the eyes of heaven. The Humanists, a later group, believed in the philosophy that people do good to help society. Although people do good purely to help society, most are motivated by the reward of the deed. The fear of not acting on good deeds is also a equal motivator, similar to the Puritans. In our modern society, the social reward, promotion of one’s self-image, and to get “brownie points” for their religion are all motivation factors for people to do good.

People are altruistic when helping is profitable. In chapter 3: “Unbelievable Stories About Apathy and Altruism” of their book SuperFreakonomics (2009), Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner state that people are not pure altruistic. (125) Furthermore, people are altruistic when there are beneficial incentives for them. On my high school’s Hallowmas back in China, some students possess booths for selling things. One friend who wanted to sell lottery tickets asked me for help because he didn’t have experience of selling. As a person who had been sold things for several times, I helped him by preparing materials, decorating the booth and cashiering. There are several reasons why I helped my friends, which suggests that people tend to be more altruistic when people can get current and future sake by helping others.