The aim of this composition is to investigate and present supporting evidence surrounding the term of helping behaviour and to what extent this action of helping stems from an individuals wish to promote a genuine feeling of happiness to an other individual without wishing anything in return, or the help that is freely distributed, is done so, but at the moral or physique cost of the actor and thirdly, that perhaps no act is really ‘selfless’, as each and every person, whether it is consciously or subconsciously, provides help, wishing to be reimbursed at a later moment (Durkin, 1995).
The umbrella term for this form of individual comportment is known as ‘Pro-social Behaviour’, which in turn is generally divided into two categories of ‘Altruism’ and ‘Bystander Behaviour’ (Campbell, 1998). The word ‘altruism’ finds its origins in 1851, when it was employed for the time by French philosopher Auguste Comte, which in literal terms signifies ‘scarifying oneself for the benefit of another’, within the term of altruism, there are numerous different models and influences that include, kin selection, reciprocal altruism, empathy-altruism hypothesis and the negative-state relief model, to cite just a few (www.
altruists.org 1). The ‘bystander effect’ can be defined in one of two manners, either ‘bystander intervention’, were an individual decides to intervene, while the second is commonly called ‘bystander apathy’, were on this occasion the individual chooses not to offer their assistance (Cardwell and Flanagan, 2004).
Kin selection or the ‘selfish gene’ view can be seen as a reason for the existence of altruism, as it provides an explanation to how between near family relatives the notion of altruism may arise (www.
altruists.org 2). From a Darwinian viewpoint, the act of reproduction can also be classified as the transfer of family genes to the next generation, consequently each of the future offspring would be in possession of their parents genetic build, and therefore, when considering related individuals in terms of ‘shared genes’, the care and the help that is provided to that offspring, can be defined as a specific form of helpful behaviour, and should there be need, this mutual behaviour maybe extended to other closely related individuals (Hewstone and Stroebe, 2001).
From this perspective, the whole ‘kin selection’ approach is evolutionary secure, as it increases the diffusion of an individuals genes to the following generation, but it is important to point out that the mutual help that is given, is proportional to the level of genes that are mutually shared. This theory was emphasised by Cunningham in his 1985/1986 article ‘A socio-biological perspective on pro-social behaviour’ published in the Humboldt journal of social relations, his research showed that the higher the kinship relationship was, the more likely that help would be freely obtained by other family members (Fletcher and Clark, 2001). A similar viewpoint was shared by Hamilton (1964), when he coined the term of ‘Coefficient of relatedness’, to underline the quantity of commonly shared genes between two related individuals and the influences it had on the decision to offer help and the level of help provided.
Another form of pro-social behaviour, is the ‘reciprocal altruism’, which is said to be closely linked to that of kin selection, as many evolutionary psychologists believe that this form of altruism finds its roots here within (Campbell, 1998). It was due to research performed at the beginning of the 1970’s by Robert Trivers and published in the Quarterly Review of Biology under the title ‘The evolution of Reciprocal Altruism’, that the theories of reciprocal altruism were first introduced (Smith and Mackie, 2007).
This perspective underlines the fact that, not all altruistic acts are reserved to kin or other personal relatives, but that under certain circumstances, helping behaviour can be extended to that of friends and even strangers, and basically finds its strength on the ‘I’ll scratch your back, if you scratch mine’ principal, and hence, acts and other good deeds are willingly rendered, but only under the condition, that these services are to be returned at a later date (Hewstone and Stroebe, 2001).
So that this form of altruism functions smoothly, there are four key factors that each play an important role, firstly the cost, be that time or effort, if this cost is seen to be low, then help is more likely to be obtained, secondly, the benefit that the donor will reap in the future, thirdly, that hypothetically the donor will be in need of assistance in the near future and finally that there is a social link between the two individuals, which enables them to come into contact frequently (Campbell, 1998).
In many cases, a reciprocal altruist naturally has a tendency to offer their support to other altruists, therefore underlining the possibility of there being a genetic similarity, due to the mutual behavioural pattern that can be observed, and it is for this reason that Rothstein argues the interlink ability between reciprocal altruism and kin selection (Rothstein, 1980).
Within the domain of altruism and the studies performed on the subject, it was in 1991 that Batson published ‘The Altruism Question: Towards a social-psychological answer’, and there after presented an empathy-based altruism. According to their findings, this empathy-altruism hypothesis, provided evidence that when an individual was in the position of witnessing another person in need, there was a penchant of imagining being in the same position, hence the feeling of empathy, and to relieve this empathic felling, help or assistance is often given (Hewstone and Stroebe, 2001).
According to Batson’s empathy-altruism hypothesis, he argued that when confronted with a person in some sort of need, the vision of this person produces a variety of emotional sensations, ranging from unhappiness to distress and equally produced an empathic concern, an example of which may well be the feeling of compassion. As a result, depending on the situation and the individual’s personality, the reasons for offering help are not the same; in the case of distress the motivations are egoistic, whereas empathy creates an altruistic stimulus (Fletcher and Clark, 2001).
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