What is Altruism?
It refers to selfless acts of doing good for others without expecting anything in return. People don’t do it because they are obliged to do it rather, they do it out of compassion with a strong sense of other’s wellbeing.
Examples
- Holding the door for someone.
- Giving your seat to someone while traveling in public transport.
- Feeding someone who is hungry.
- Giving money to someone in need.
- Buying clothes for those who can’t afford them.
- feeding street dogs, cats or birds.
Types of Altruism
Genetic Altruism
This happens when you engage in selfless acts for your blood relatives or immediate family members. The best example of this type of altruism is our parents, who work hard for fulfilling our needs. It is all about making sacrifices and being always ‘available’ for the family members.
Pure Altruism
This mainly stems from the moral beliefs of a person. It involves helping someone without expecting anything in return. The main source of this type of altruism is mainly ‘empathy’ and ‘kindness’. For example- buying food for someone who can’t afford it.
Reciprocal Altruism
As the name suggests, in this type of altruism the person who is helping the other person expects the same at some point of time, which is also known as ‘give and take’. For example- lending money to a friend who helped you during your bad times.
Cultural- group Altruism
This means helping people who are part of a particular group- it can be the group we identify with, ethnic or social group. For example- donating money to a non profitable organisation for child education.
What are the reasons of altruistic behavior?
While most of the psychologists believe that ‘genetic factors’ plays a very important role, but there are other factors that play an important role in what makes people altruistic.
- You all must have come across someone who is just very kind by nature, and the main driving force of their life is ‘empathy’. These people just feel more than other people, they relate with people’s pain and happiness more than others and think more about other’s welfare than themselves.
- Neurobiologists have found out that when people engage themselves in altruistic behavior, it activates the pleasure center of their brain. So, when people experience pleasure by doing the acts of caring and helping others- they repeat their actions to experience the same pleasure again, also known as ‘reward-based altruism’. Also, some evolutionary scientists believe that humans and animals are naturally capable of altruistic behaviour as it ensures their survival. That is the reason why animals and birds start making sounds when they see a predator.
- We all are very much aware of the fact that our parents are always our first teachers. Whether our parents were kind to others or rude to others, whether they used people for their selfish motives or helped them, whether they engaged themselves in acts of kindness or selfishness – it affects the child’s behaviour too. The more altruistic the parents are, there are more chances that the child is going to learn and practice the same things.
- We learn many things from our friends & our relationships. These relationships, plays a very important role in whom we become and who we are. For example- if one of your friends like to feed street dogs, and he saves money to feed them – then there are chances that you will naturally start developing a sense of care for street dogs. The simple reason is you saw your friend making the efforts of doing something good for them. So, in some cases there is transference of thoughts and emotions, which motivates people to engage themselves in acts of altruism.
Now the most significant part of this piece of writing.
Altruism born of Suffering
Ervin Staub and his findings
Ervin Staub in 1989, prepared a questionnaire on ‘values and helping’. More than 7000 people participated and filled those questionnaires. He discovered letters attached with the questionnaires submitted by participants. One of the letters said, “I help people because I have suffered, and I don’t want anybody else to suffer the way I did”.
Often suffering is associated with revenge and violence, but there are people who want to protect others because of their sufferings. The most basic example of altruism in our everyday life could be seen in families. Have you ever noticed the way your eldest brother or eldest sister protects you from everything? They are not obliged to protect you-nobody is- but they missed having someone around who could stop your parents from scolding them, who could protect them in school the way they protect you or, they just missed having someone to talk to about things that they couldn’t share with your parents. So, while protecting you, they are trying to give you what they missed having for themselves.
Girls or boys who don’t receive the right amount of love and care from their parents during their childhood, they end up becoming great parents for their children. Do you know why? Because they exactly know how it felt when they did not receive it. So, in such cases the suffering gives birth to altruism in them as ‘kids’.
Another reason how suffering gives birth to altruism is getting help during the time of suffering. At least 99% of the people who receive help during suffering becomes altruistic. This phenomenon is known as ‘learning by doing’.
When people suffer because of their personal issues, family issues or due to any kind of natural calamity-they already know how those emotions and feelings are making them feel. But if they receive the right type of support and guidance, it helps them during their healing process which enhances their resilience. When people receive such kind of support, they remember that someone stayed by their side when they were really in need. When victims experience ‘goodness’ of other people, they try to provide the same goodness to those who they see suffering. The reason why this happens is that now the same victim wants to be that source of ‘care and support’ that somebody else provided them during their time of suffering. Another step that affects ‘altruism’ is, if the person who suffered took care of themselves after the suffering happened, for example-therapy and counseling. It is very important to resolve those underlying issues that took birth with suffering. If people don’t resolve these issues, then the same issues are going to influence their whole life in some way or the other. So, it’s very essential to sign up for therapy no matter how big or how small the suffering was, it was still a suffering. The main idea of therapy is to help the client/victim come out of that suffering- with a more positive and stronger sense of self. When people identify themselves with other people’s pain, that is what is known as ‘empathy ‘. Once people start empathising with other’s pain, it gives birth to ‘Altruism born of suffering’.
P.S-“Causing goodness must be the cause of goodness-
