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True altruism does not exist
Module: Advanced Psychology (18205)
106 Documents
Students shared 106 documents in this course
University: Birmingham City University
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Helping behaviour has been a focus of social psychological research since
the 1950's (Hogg and Vaughan, 2008) and within this literature; there
exists an abundance of studies concerned with the concept of altruism.
The main aim of this essay is to consider the assertion that every action is
a selfish one and thus true altruism does not exist. In order to do this,
relevant theory and research on pro-social behaviour will be explored.
Broadly speaking, pro-social behaviour involves carrying out an act that
benefits another (Hogg and Vaughan, 2008) and the interest in this topic
since the 1950's, from a research point of view, has impressive longevity.
Altruism, as a concept, has attracted much debate and is a type of helping
behavior, essentially involving helping another without any expectation of
personal gain (Batson and Coke, 1981; Macaulay and Berkowitz, 1970).
Perhaps it is rather difficult to realistically suggest that an act could ever
be categorised as truly altruistic or indeed if it is not, then it must be
selfish. This essay will help to support the view that altruism exists to
some extent but often there can be benefits for the individual in
demonstrating this behaviour. Research has unfortunately at times aimed
to minimise the assertion that a motive to help others without personal
benefit can exist (Krueger, 2012).
Theory and Research
Wilson (2015, p.5) very recently documented that "the question of how
altruism evolves is such a controversy that is just entering its resolution
phase." Altruism is a fairly complicated concept to explore and some of
Wilson's (2015) writings reflect this. For instance, Wilson (2015) alludes to
the idea that it can be challenging to truly understand an individual's
intention when helping another in that it may be to feel better, win favour
with God or ensure the other person is in debt to you. The question
therefore might be along the lines of what constitutes truly altruistic
behaviour and when does it become selfish.
Wilson (2015) also helpfully simplifies how one might view altruism by
focusing, temporarily, only on the behaviour. An example is illustrated by
Wilson (2015) whereby if one individual helps another at a cost to
themselves then that demonstrates altruism regardless of what they
thought or felt about the situation.
Pro-social behaviour theory provides mixed support for the idea of true
altruism. For instance, altruism does not particularly receive support from
the well-known bystander-calculus model (Piliavin, Dovidio, Gaertner and
Clark, 1981), if one is to accept it. This model would assert that individuals
would take action in an emergency essentially to reduce their own
unpleasant arousal (Batson and Oleson, 1991). This theory clearly makes
reference to the significance of the thoughts and feelings of the individual.
It may suggest that in part, the helper is to a degree being selfish, but at
the same time, is actually carrying out an act that helps another. From this