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Permalink Reply by Māris on February 18, 2011 at 11:35am

Why don't I care about 1000 deaths somewhere on the other side of the world as much as I do when a friend of mine dies? I guess the level of connection to others is what decides how empathetic we feel towards them, and we all have a different level of empathy in us.

 

I've never really donated anything to charity, I don't have a job, I've never really thought I had any spare money etc., and sad pictures of some poor people somewhere don't change much (the way charities usually are advertised to ignite empathy), if I had the figures that my 5$ would actually contribute and the money won't go into wrong pockets, i would at least reconsider.

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Permalink Reply by Simon 'Iceyed' Cleopatros on February 18, 2011 at 12:04pm

I agree altruism makes for a great conversational topic. From the studies I have read, we are all purely hedonistic when born, we need to be thaught to differentiate between anothers' needs and our own. A small child will never intuitively feel the need to share it's toys with another child. This behavior of altruism needs to be positively reinforced by the parents. Therefore it could be stated that altruism is a behavior purely based on nurture and nobody has any biological predisposition to it whatsoever. If you are brought up in a household with very strong ethical guidelines about 'right and wrong' or even 'good and evil' it will increase your altruistic tendencies.

 

What drives people with an innate need to do good deeds? Well, my personal belief is that anything, which causes you as a person enough distress will drive you to resolve the situation. Like with the child being further and further away in your conversation. The further the child is removed from your immediate environment, the less distress it would cause you compared to the situation where you would be directly confronted with the issue. So the chance of you going to 'save' this hypothetical child decreases in likelihood as the problem becomes less and less directly related to your personal environment.

 

When altruism fails? There is a phenomenon in social psyhology called the apathetic bystander effect. This phenomenon was studied in a certain case study of which I have forgotten most of the details. But it goes like this, a women, who initially only got mugged by a thief started shouting for help and got stabbed several times by the same thief. The conflict ensued for approximately 15 minutes. Over 30 people in the surrounding appartment buildings witnessed this gruesome act. Yet nobody intervined directly. 2 people called the police, 1 person shouted "STOP THAT".  Some of the bystander witnesses moved their chairs to their windows to more comfortably observe the homocide below. From the interviews done with the bystanders by psychologists it was shown that nobody felt particularly morally obliged to help the victim because there was nobody else doing that. So in this scenario, we can presume that for people to be more likely to engage in altruistic behavior, there needs to be a social role model of some sort. Zimbardo desribes the people that are able to become such a social role model without any initial incentives except their own morals as 'modern day heros'. These people seem to have such strong values that they are able to break from the social influence in a situation, where nobody seems to be sure what to do.

 

My own personal opinion however is that altruism only occurs when an individual feels some sort of personal benefit. For instance when you donate money to a beggar your behavior is rooted in the fact that altruism makes you feel like a better person. Someone who wants to do good will subsequently be able to increase their self esteem. It will grant you peace of mind, a positive image of yourself and last but not least public judgement can bear enormously positive effects on social validation. I'm not saying altruism is selfish, I'm saying that people who are raised with altruistic guidelines are essentially after the same thing as pure hedonists. They've just rerouted their way of getting to it.

 

Peace, Simon

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Permalink Reply by The Shiznit on February 19, 2011 at 1:06pm

I wish that there was a "Like" button/option for comments on here like they have on Facebook.  Dislike, too, btw, which they also need but do not have. But in any case, after reading the comments so far, I decided that I liked & agreed with Simon's here the best.  Whether we want to admit to it or not, a large part of human nature is selfish, and even our inclinations to occasionally help others can oftentimes be connected to a fundamental {and often hidden} motivation to boost our own egos, or to alleviate negative feelings of guilt, frustration, anxiety, etc.

 

One aspect of this that I didn't see addressed yet is the fact that there are so MANY issues and problems and people with needs in the world that it is impossible for any one of us, individually, to correct them all.  I would liken this to something else that I find myself struggling with quite often, and that is the idea of what I like to call "information overload."  The idea being that there are so MANY things that I would like to learn more about in the world; so many News items that I would like to be more informed about; so many movies that I would like to watch; so many books that I would like to read, etc.; but that I will NEVER have enough time to actually do everything that I would like to do, or to learn everything that I would like to learn, so I constantly have to attempt to prioritize everything and choose how I will "spend" my most valuable asset - my time.  Out of the thousands of news articles that are published every day, I may only read 2 or 3.  Out of all the books that exist and are published on a weekly basis, I may only read 1 a week; and so on & so forth.

 

I think that the same principle applies when it comes to our altruistic behavior. There are so MANY problems in the world and so MANY people who need help, that we cannot possibly address them all, (at least not alone,) and so we all have a natural tendency to prioritize what problems we choose to address, and which ones we will ignore.  The best example I could think of as to how a problem's distance from us affects our inclination to address it was that of a building being on fire.  If I come home and it is MY house on fire, or my neighbor's, I will panic and call 9-1-1 immediately, and will probably even get my garden hose out and try to spray some water on the flames myself before the firemen get there.  If the house that is on fire is down the street from me a few blocks, I will probably call 9-1-1, and MAYBE walk down to watch the situation, along with some other curious "spectators" from the neighborhood.  If I can only see some smoke in the distance but not the building itself, I will assume that there must be a fire "over there somewhere"... but my inclination to call 9-1-1 or even to go & watch the event is GREATLY diminished. In my mind I will probably be saying to myself that there are 100 other people who are closer to that fire than I am, and that THEY will already be doing everything that can & should be done, so my personal assistance is really unnecessary.

 

I think you can see the parallel.  In your example, the boy on my doorstep would be "in my face" and therefore difficult to ignore. He would therefore become a priority.  The starving children in Ethiopia, however, are on the other side of the planet from me, and there are too many of them for me to feed, so I will tend to ignore them and hope that somebody else, somebody closer, will address their problems.  I like the IDEA of being altruistic; but I'm also REALISTIC.  I cannot solve all of the world's problems, and I am not going to spend all of my time trying to. If I were to spend 16 hours of every day doing things for other people, I may feel good about myself emotionally, but I am also losing those hours for my SELF.  I could be using those same hours to read good books, learn new things, participate in intellectual discussions, or improve my physical health with exercise.  Self-Improvement. Self-Development. Self-fulfillment.  

See the issue?  :-)

 

I think that altruistic behavior, as with most things in life, is something that has to be balanced; but finding the PROPER balance is hard.  I also believe that people can accomplish more by working collectively than a single person can working alone; so I am very much in favor of altruistic and charitable organizations; even though I have to agree that there are many organizations out there that are abusive & deceptive, so we have to be very careful about who we give our money to.  ;-)

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Permalink Reply by the.tiny.dreameater on February 19, 2011 at 1:30pm

One thing that came to mind when you said you could probably boil every altruistic behavior down to some selfish aspect is, helping another human being blossom. If you can help and teach another human to be the best of itself and to be able to give. When I think about this I think about the whole world and everyone taking it under our wings, to make it a better place to be. I'm not talking hunger or poverty, since I know there are hobos out there who are much more satisfied with their lives than the average joe. I believe it's a bigger issue to change the minds of people into constructive thoughts, as once people feel good about themselves they can begin to care for others and the will to help will be in abundance. There are so  many people in the cities who don't even spare a thought towards helping out and making earth a great place to exist because they don't have mental surplus, it feels as an individual like you're never going to succeed. If we want significant change in poorer countries I think we need change in our own first, and establish a constructive society and mentality. 

Of course it's a good thing that some people try to make a change, but we could build wonders.

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Permalink Reply by the.tiny.dreameater on February 18, 2011 at 12:10pm

I think human contact is a big part of it. If I can help the child with my own hands and see the effect with my own eyes first hand, it's much more giving for everyone instead of if you give money to some fund, they are only links between the ones that wants to give and the one that needs help. It's sort of an awkward situation I think to deliver help to someone from an unknown source, as there is no real human contact between the two in focus. 

Basically I don't think we should have cameras watching the whole earth for any human being being in trouble and getting help to it. And I don't think anyone has any responsibility to help anyone else. I think you can justify your existence just by helping yourself and not caring about others. Personally I love helping other people, actually it's one of the things I love most about life. I have enough money to help the 4 year old at the door step, I would basically consider it a gift that I was chosen to be put in this situation to be able to help another human being. I love honest contact between people, and this situation would certainly save my day.

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Permalink Reply by Dariusz on February 18, 2011 at 1:31pm

"would you take it to a hospital? [...] Would you pay for it to save the child's life?"

 

Only if i would like the kid for some reason.

 

"Would you go to it and do the same thing?"

 

Yes, again it would depend what am i doing and what is he like, you can never describe real life situations accurate enaugh, in examples like this.

 

"I'm not pointing any fingers, I'm actually just asking out of curiosity, what decides the range of people's altruism and responsibility (you included)?"

 

I'm the least altruistic person i know, and from my experience it's just lack of attachement to other people. To care for someone, he hust have some value to me first. If someone is asking me for help and i'm not busy i'll help, if i would have fun by helping i'll also help, but other than that i don't care enaugh. There is just lack of empathy, no emotions at all (or very little) involved, it's not like i have reason to not help, I just have no reason to do so.

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Permalink Reply by Thedanzor on February 18, 2011 at 2:29pm

Hello,

Rather interesting topic, to be honest i have never thought about it.

I think people also ask themselves the cost to benefits of any situation. Like in this case at most i spend maybe 1 night or a few days with the child. To me a few nights and a little cash to save a childs life is well worth the cost. But if the case was, the child was miles away, you could barely afford it and even then may have to go without eating for a few days. Then the cost to benefit in peoples mind will start to changing dramatically.

How people value things and how selfless they are is always "created" by the environment around them. I agree with Simon 'Iceyed' Cleopatros entirely when he said that parents teaching their child to have good values, do good etc. Will be more likely to go more out of there way to assist people.

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Permalink Reply by Simon 'Iceyed' Cleopatros on February 19, 2011 at 1:35am

Ah yes, because donation to charity doesn't feel real enough, not directly gratifying like saving a dying child by administering its medicine while holding it in your arms...

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Permalink Reply by Dave I.T. on February 19, 2011 at 2:51pm

I think its a case of close human connectivity. If someone is on your doorstep dying, you're more likely to help them, because look, they're right there! You know they're going to get the treatment because you'll be with them every step of the way. Both your presence and money is required to help them, because of that, you'll do what you can.

 

The problem many people have with certain charities is, you're essentially sending your money to a picture, an idea, or a philosophy and you never really know if it actually gets there. It's more of a trust issue, if you're sending your money overseas or even a few states over because you don't know if its getting to the people you're sending it to. There is a level of disconnectivity in just donating to charities. 

 

I believe we're more likely to help people if we're actually directly working to help them. I don't believe in donating to charities, but I do on occasion and honestly, I don't feel much from it because I really don't feel like I'm really helping. I don't believe throwing money at a problem fixes it, if you really want to change someones life you need to be involved at a higher level than just, "Here takes this cash, I care." Don't get me wrong throwing money at it DEFINITELY helps, but it won't remedy it completely.

 

If you honestly ask people if they donated to charities before, most of them will say yes, but if you ask them how many charities they donated to or what were the names of the charities, I doubt many will recall all of them, or even the amount of money they donated!

 

I don't think the distance really matters, not for me at least, as long as I'm involved in the physically involved in the process, I'll help anyone I can and that's partially because I don't trust many charities. I'd prefer to fly myself over to a third-world country for a few hundred bucks and work with the people there versus just donating a few hundred bucks to the country.

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Permalink Reply by SeungUn Ham on February 20, 2011 at 1:40am

Maybe the range goes up as you get richer and don't have other craps to worry about.

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Permalink Reply by Tobias Liehs on March 11, 2011 at 12:09am

Atcually every problem solved can or leads often to new problems... so I'm always... scared somehow to take influence on things, what happens to the child after the treatment, there should already be a big problem because it's sitting at the front of your door and is sick and needs medicine, someone alone can't change everything, I certainly would help the child and talk the doctor into doing it for free like:  You safe the life of that child NOW or I sue you !

This may cause some problems especially because the family, when the child has one, could get into debts. Or it has ran away from home because it was mistreated. As a human you simply are responsible for you DO or NOT, I very often feel guilty because of that reflection towards humanity, but imho it's even worse to feel sad and complain if you are actually treated better than those people that have much more to suffer because they were born in worse circumstances.

Sometimes I catch myself at thinking do I really want to be people we think have a difficult and bad stand in the world community to be as decadent as us... or actually me, me too don't want to point at anybody but me.

You could also say thinking of spending the rest of your life suffering and going to your outmost for others would drive you insane, as always you have to keep the balance, at this point i'd like to refer to one of your Vlogs you can only help others if you have been able to help yourself... okay I altered it a little bit, but I guess you know what I'm trying to say.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Runyan on May 14, 2011 at 9:29pm

This sounds like Peter Singer's The Life You Can Save. He gives the same situation you just proposed - child in need, considerable cost to self. He goes on to claim their is no significant difference between this child and a child who will die from poverty, war, and disease in one of the many harrowing places on earth.

 

As for all the points about charities and efficacy in combating poverty, you can look at the finances of charities (e.g. overhead expenditures) and evaluate them yourself at. charitynavigator.org . As for how effective these programs actually are, the ability to analyze development efficacy has improved dramatically since the 1980s with rigorous scientific analysis of different poverty programs in much the same way as clinical studies are done to prove efficacy of drugs by pharmaceutical companies. Such research has shown that claims like "$10, save a life!" are B.S. because they only account for the cost to by the resource (mosquito nets for instance) and fail to consider the costs of transportation, education, community development, planning and overhead which will inevitably also transpire. Studies have shown, you can find them in The Life You Can Save, that some programs can save lives (like those of Population Services International) for less than $200 dollars (accounting for all the above externalities, and more.

 

Finally, it isn't just a question of saving one life abroad. I would argue that we have an ethical obligation to help until we are making a comparable sacrifice (my children won't have food if I give more money to the World Food Program of the UN). However, I don't believe this to be as huge of a sacrifice as one might think. I would rather be poor with purpose than rich without.

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