Why Do People Help Others? Essay

Acting with an unselfish and benevolent regard towards others isn’t always the easiest thing for one to do and most people have to put in a conscious effort to do it but some people believe that human beings are hard wired to behave altruistically as a primal method of survival. Humans could never

Why should students help pick up fellow classmate's books that he or she dropped? Why should people give to the homeless? Why should humans become organ donors? Altruism is defined as a person's ability to go out of their way to enhance the welfare of someone else without anything in return. But it's not the "what" of altruism that is intriguing, it's the "why" that is truly fascinating. Scientist and researches may never pinpoint what makes humans exhibit altruistic behavior, but there is one thing that scientist and researches are sure about. Altruism plays an important role in running society, and the world can use more of it.

In the first two paragraphs Lewis Thomas describes altruism as acts of self sacrifice but in the next paragraph, he specifies altruism is a human behaviour as opposed to any animal or insect’s behaviour. Thomas states that animals don’t have human brains to think things through, in other words, they are mechanical, they just do things without justification and therefore the term “altruism” does not apply to them. Animals don’t have the ability to do things and be concerned about consequences, in other words, they don’t consciously intend to act a certain way, therefore animals have no connection to altruism, for altruism is a human behaviour.

Bartel (1976) defines prosocial behaviour as ‘behaviour that intentionally helps or benefits another person’. Batson (1987) defines altruism as ‘helping another person for no reward, and even at some cost to oneself.’ This definition of altruism seemingly depicts the behaviour as selfless, however there is a wealth of research which suggests that this is not the case.

A theory of mind allows for other forms of altruism, reciprocal altruism, in contrast to kin selection (Clegg, 2007) is when the benefit is conveyed on another whom is not a relative and with no guarantee of anything in return. It is a gamble, the altruist must have a theory of mind in order to possess a level of trust that the benefit will be reciprocated and so is therefore a more human trait. This has been studied and observed by evolutionary psychologists using The Prisoner’s Dilemma Game (Clegg, 2007 pg. 147), the most common method used for studying altruism. Similarly with indirect reciprocity, the altruist is not guaranteed a benefit but bases his gesture on the possibility of a gain not from the person who the altruistic act was bestowed upon but from another, such as the wider community, for example, to boost one’s reputation (Clegg, 2007). McAndrew and Farrelly et al used empirical evidence to suggest that one’s reputation has a direct correlation with how attractive they are perceived to be and so therefore could have an influence on reproductive success (as cited in Clegg, 2007). Nedelou and Michod discovered a genetic element for altruism (as cited in Clegg, 2007) and as it has been demonstrated to be universal, it is probable that altruism is an adaptive behaviour.

if the cost of leaving was high (they had to do an onerous task if

Prosocial behavior refers to "voluntary actions that are intended to help or benefit another individual or group of individuals" (Eisenberg and Mussen 1989). This definition refers to consequences of the people who do the actions rather than the motivations behind those actions. These behaviors include a broad range of activities: sharing, comforting, rescuing, and helping. Though prosocial behavior can be confused with altruism, they are, in fact, two distinct concepts. Prosocial behavior refers to a pattern of activity, whereas, altruism is the motivation to help others out of pure regard for their needs rather than

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

This study shows that the cost of time is an important influence on whether an individual chooses to help. Also many studies have found that people tend to help others during daylight when there is no threat to their safety compared with night time. Also personal factors are very strong influences on helping behaviour.

An oxymoron appeared to exist between Darwin’s theory of natural selection (1859) and the definition of altruism (West et al., 2006). Hamilton’s theory of inclusive fitness (1964) appeared to mediate this problem. However, the theory does not explain altruistic acts towards non-kin in line with natural selection. Reciprocal altruism (Trivers, 1971), indirect altruism (Alexander, 1987) and strong reciprocity (Gintis, 2000) have been proposed to resolve this conflict. It is of note that behaviour in all theories has been noted in animals, but will not be discussed further. Instead, the essay will focus on which theories are most relevant when understanding human sociality, with the author explaining why no sole theory is seen to describe the phenomenon. All theories will be discussed in relation to evolutionary stable strategies (ESS), which refers to plans that when adopted by a majority of members in a population that restrict any other action existing, which could yield higher reproductive success (Smith & Price, 1973).

Many have defined altruism in a similar context, a special form of helping behaviour that is “an act that is motivated by the desire to benefit another individual rather than oneself” (Hogg &Vaughan, 2008). An altruistic act does not necessarily have a negative or zero value to the actor (Margolis, 1982) but a true altruistic act is detrimental to the actor's fitness and enhances another individual’s fitness, in other words, a selfless act (Batson, 1991). Throughout the evolution of altruism, there have been many controversies about the existence of true altruism. Most theories have argued that it stems from ulterior motives, but does that prove

"We are all here on earth to help others. What I can't figure out is what the others are here for." --W. H. Auden (1)

First, it is important to understand what altruism is. Altruism is any act carried out by an individual in order to benefit another individual. [1, 2] At first glance,

Social and cultural pressures, as well as beliefs about the self will influence helping behaviors. In an emergency, both informational and normative social influences are impacting whether an individual helps another. People look for queues from others in order to determine if the current situation requires action to be taken. Also, people will do things simply to be accepted by the group (Aronson et al., 2013). In any

Altruistic acts are often seen through the benevolent acts of family members express towards each other on a regular basis. Because of the significant amount of genes we share with our kin, the survival of a family is prioritized equally to the survival of the individual. Each member of the family will therefore behave altruistically towards each other, due to the evolutionary drive for survival. The reason that parents behave this altruistically towards their offspring is because “parents (adults) are in a maximally favorable position to dispense inexpensive aid to offspring (eggs) that maximally resembles the parents genetically” (Alexander, 462). Even through altruism is perhaps highest between family members, people also feel more empathetic towards others who possess similar traits, as a large number of genes are share. As altruism “involves a loss of individual fitness, [it] can evolve only by group selection” (Nunney, 228). Therefore, we can see that nature’s force of the survival of the group is a primary driving factor for the appearance of altruism.