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Helping
Helping behavior refers to voluntary actions intended to help others, with reward regarded or disregarded. It is a type of prosocial behavior (voluntary action intended to help or benefit another individual or group of individuals, such as sharing, comforting, rescuing and helping). Altruism is distinguished from helping behavior in this way: Altruism refers to prosocial behaviors that are carried out without expectation of obtaining external reward (concrete reward or social reward) or internal reward (self-reward). An example of altruism would be anonymously donating to charity. Perspectives on Kin selection theory Kin selection theory explains altruism from an evolutionary perspective. Since natural selection screens out species without abilities to adapt to the challenging environment, preservation of good traits and superior genes are important for survival of future generations (i.e. inclusive fitness). Kin selection refers to an inheritable tendency to perform behaviors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Negative-state Relief Model
The negative-state relief model states that human beings have an innate drive to reduce negative moods. They can be reduced by engaging in any mood-elevating behaviour, including helping behaviour, as it is paired with positive value such as smiles and thank you. Thus negative mood increases helpfulness because helping others can reduce one's own bad feelings. Supporting evidence In a classic experiment, subjects had their negative mood induced and were given an opportunity to help others. Between negative mood induction and helping, half of the subjects received something pleasurable, while the others did not. Those subjects without gratifying intervention before helped more significantly than those with. It was argued that the pleasurable intervention relieved subjects’ mood, and hence, altruism was not required to elevate their mood. Under negative state relief model, helping behaviours are motivated by one's egoistic desires. In Manucia's 1979 study, the hedonistic natur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prosocial Behavior
Prosocial behavior is a social behavior that "benefit other people or society as a whole", "such as helping, sharing, donating, co-operating, and volunteering". The person may or may not intend to benefit others; the behavior's prosocial benefits are often only calculable after the fact. (Consider: Someone may intend to 'do good' but the effects may be catastrophic.) Obeying the rules and conforming to socially accepted behaviors (such as stopping at a "Stop" sign or paying for groceries) are also regarded as prosocial behaviors. These actions may be motivated by culturally influenced value systems; empathy and concern about the welfare and rights of others;Santrock, John W. A Topical Approach to Life Span Development 4th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Ch. 15, pp. 489–491 egoistic or practical concerns, such as one's social status or reputation, hope for direct or indirect reciprocity, or adherence to one's perceived system of fairness; or altruism, though the existence ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Altruism
Altruism is the concern for the well-being of others, independently of personal benefit or reciprocity. The word ''altruism'' was popularised (and possibly coined) by the French philosopher Auguste Comte in French, as , for an antonym of egoism. He derived it from the Italian , which in turn was derived from Latin , meaning "alterity, other people" or "somebody else". Altruism may be considered a synonym of selflessness, the opposite of self-centeredness. Altruism is an important moral value in many cultures and religions. It can Moral circle expansion, expand beyond care for humans to include other Sentience, sentient beings and future generations. Altruism, as observed in populations of organisms, is when an individual performs an action at a cost to itself (in terms of e.g. pleasure and quality of life, time, probability of survival or reproduction) that benefits, directly or indirectly, another individual, without the expectation of reciprocity or compensation for that ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empathy
Empathy is generally described as the ability to take on another person's perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience. There are more (sometimes conflicting) definitions of empathy that include but are not limited to social, cognitive, and emotional processes primarily concerned with understanding others. Often times, empathy is considered to be a broad term, and broken down into more specific concepts and types that include cognitive empathy, emotional (or affective) empathy, wiktionary:somatic#Etymology, somatic empathy, and spiritual empathy. Empathy is still a topic of research. The major areas of research include the development of empathy, the genetics and neuroscience of empathy, cross-species empathy, and the impairment of empathy. Some researchers have made efforts to quantify empathy through different methods, such as from questionnaires where participants can fill out and then be scored on their answers. The ability to imagin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eusociality
Eusociality ( Greek 'good' and social) is the highest level of organization of sociality. It is defined by the following characteristics: cooperative brood care (including care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping generations within a colony of adults, and a division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive groups. The division of labor creates specialized behavioral groups within an animal society, sometimes called castes. Eusociality is distinguished from all other social systems because individuals of at least one caste usually lose the ability to perform behaviors characteristic of individuals in another caste. Eusocial colonies can be viewed as superorganisms. Eusociality has evolved among the insects, crustaceans, trematoda and mammals. It is most widespread in the Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps) and in Isoptera (termites). A colony has caste differences: queens and reproductive males take the roles of the sole reproducers, while soldiers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cooperation
Cooperation (written as co-operation in British English and, with a varied usage along time, coöperation) takes place when a group of organisms works or acts together for a collective benefit to the group as opposed to working in competition for selfish individual benefit. In biology, many animal and plant species cooperate both with other members of their own species and with members of other species with whom they have (symbiotic or mutualism (biology), mutualistic) relationships. Among humans Humans cooperate for the same reasons as other animals: immediate benefit, genetic relatedness, and reciprocity, but also for particularly human reasons, such as honesty signaling (indirect reciprocity), cultural group selection, and for reasons having to do with cultural evolution. Language allows humans to cooperate on a very large scale. Certain studies have suggested that fairness affects human cooperation; individuals are willing to punish at their own cost (''altruistic punis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reciprocal Altruism
In evolutionary biology, reciprocal altruism is a behaviour whereby an organism acts in a manner that temporarily reduces its fitness while increasing another organism's fitness, with the expectation that the other organism will act in a similar manner at a later time. The concept was initially developed by Robert Trivers to explain the evolution of cooperation as instances of mutually altruistic acts. The concept is close to the strategy of " tit for tat" used in game theory. In 1987, Trivers presented at a symposium on reciprocity, noting that he initially titled his article "The Evolution of Delayed Return Altruism," but reviewer W. D. Hamilton suggested renaming it "The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism." While Trivers adopted the new title, he retained the original examples, causing confusion about reciprocal altruism for decades. Rothstein and Pierotti (1988) addressed this issue at the symposium, proposing new definitions that clarified the concepts. They argued that Delayed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher who is Emeritus Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. Singer's work specialises in applied ethics, approaching the subject from a secular, utilitarian perspective. He wrote the book ''Animal Liberation (book), Animal Liberation'' (1975), in which he argues for vegetarianism, and the essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", which argues the moral imperative of donating to help the poor around the world. For most of his career, he was a preference utilitarian. He revealed in ''The Point of View of the Universe'' (2014), coauthored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, that he had become a hedonistic utilitarian. On two occasions, Singer served as chair of the philosophy department at Monash University, where he founded its Centre for Human Bioethics. In 1996, he stood unsuccessfully as a Australian Greens, Greens candidate for the Australian Senate. In 2004, Singer was recognise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kin Selection
Kin selection is a process whereby natural selection favours a trait due to its positive effects on the reproductive success of an organism's relatives, even when at a cost to the organism's own survival and reproduction. Kin selection can lead to the evolution of Altruism in animals, altruistic behaviour. It is related to inclusive fitness, which combines the number of offspring produced with the number an individual can ensure the production of by supporting others (weighted by the relatedness between individuals). A broader definition of kin selection includes selection acting on interactions between individuals who share a gene of interest even if the gene is not shared due to common ancestry. Charles Darwin discussed the concept of kin selection in his 1859 book, ''On the Origin of Species'', where he reflected on the puzzle of sterile social insects, such as honey bees, which leave reproduction to their mothers, arguing that a selection benefit to related organisms (the sam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolution
Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. The process of evolution has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation. The scientific theory of evolution by natural selection was conceived independently by two British naturalists, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, in the mid-19th century as an explanation for why organisms are adapted to their physical and biological environments. The theory was first set out in detail in Darwin's book ''On the Origin of Species''. Evolution by natural selection is established by observable facts about living organisms: (1) more offspring are often produced than can possibly survive; (2) phenotypic variatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Exchange Theory
Social exchange theory is a sociological and psychological theory which studies how people interact by weighing the potential costs and benefits of their relationships. This occurs when each party has goods that the other parties value. Social exchange theory can be applied to a wide range of relationships, including romantic partnerships, friendships, family dynamics, professional relationships and other social exchanges. An example can be as simple as exchanging words with a customer at the cash register. In each context individuals are thought to evaluate the rewards and costs that are associated with that particular relationship. This can influence decisions regarding maintaining, deepening or ending the interaction or relationship. The Social exchange theory suggests that people will typically end something if the costs outweigh the rewards, especially if their efforts are not returned. The most comprehensive social exchange theories are those of the American social psyc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
