Altruism the Little Old Lady Was Obviously

Altruism

The little old lady was obviously having difficulty putting her trash out by the curb. She could not pick up the garbage can and simply pushed it along her driveway in a series of very slow, halting, steps. As I drove by I could see that it was quite a chore for her and decided to stop my car, get out, and help her. I walked up to her and said "Excuse me ma'am, but let me do that for you." I then did the same for the rest of her garbage. The look on her face was one of gratitude and relief and after I finished she tried to pay me, but I refused to take her money, gave her a hug, and said "Have a great day!" I then returned to my car and drove away.

There was quite a feeling of accomplishment running through me as well as a type of feeling of fulfillment at having performed this random act of kindness. The gratitude expressed by the lady was so satisfying to me that it made me want to repeat the act again the next time I saw the opportunity. There is a type of gratification in helping others who really need it and really appreciate it. However, I wondered what would have happened if the lady yelled at me and tried to beat me off when I asked to help her or simply walked back into her house after I had finished without any overt expressions of gratitude. Would I have felt the same feelings? Would I have wanted to repeat the act?

My understanding of altruism is that it is a motivation or an act that is designed to help or benefit another person's welfare without a conscious regard for the helper's self -- benefit. The above act certainly would not be described as an altruistic act because it was part of an assignment; my motivation was to get a good grade. Altruistic acts are offered when no benefit is expected in return. This expectation is usually considered to be a conscious expectation of no benefit in return, it has been suggested that there are no true "altruistic" actions as are motivation to help others is always fueled by some type of self-interest whether it be overt or covert. Altruism differs from notions of personal professional responsibility in that when a person offers assistance out of a notion of personal or even social responsibility they do so as an obligatory act. Likewise, professions that mandate that their practitioners need to be responsible for others and act in a helpful manner are not promoting altar is as the notion of professional responsibility is also an obligatory action to an external agent and one performs them with this motivation in mind. Thus, a person acting from these perspectives is not being altruistic. Altruism differs from codependency in that codependent relationships and actions are ones of control and manipulation, whereas altruistic acts are performed without this motivation.

Altruism and the study of altruistic actions are important for several reasons. From a psychological perspective is important to understand why people help others and the conditions under which people will or will not offer assistance in order to understand and attempt to increase the incidence of prosocial behavior. Moreover, acts of offering help without the expectation of anything in return appear to have a sort of domino effect where others who observe such actions are more likely to repeat them. However, there are a number of limits to altruistic acts such as the number of bystanders in a certain situation (diffusion of responsibility), the actions of others in a situation, how much time pressure in person feels in a given situation, the mood of the potential helper, the characteristics of the person(s) in need, personality variables, etc.