The definition of altruism is selfless concern fro the welfare of others while focusing on a motivation to help others or a want to do good without reward (“Altruism“, n.d.). Perspective is the first step in toward altruism (Brehm, Kassin, & Fein, 1999). If you “perceive” someone in need and imagine how that person feels, you are likely to experience feelings of empathic concern (Brehm et al. 1999). This causes us to see ourselves in the other person’s circumstances and how we would feel if what was happening might happen to you. This is the basic concept in Daniel Batson’s The Altruism Question (1991). Batson refers to this as empathy-altruism hypothesis.  Empathy-altruism hypothesis states that when we feel empathy for a person, we will attempt to help purely for altruistic reasons. If we do not feel empathy, then social exchange concerns will come into play (Gire, 2003, chap. 10).

When feelings of empathy are present many times people will help while stating they are only doing it for the good of that person, and expect nothing in return. However perhaps weeks, months, maybe even years pass and circumstances change for the person who extended themselves to help someone, and they begin thinking about all the things they did for others and why is someone not coming to their aid. Did they truly experience altruism or did they perform the act of kindness with a thought in the back of their mind to hope they would gain something later on in life. Often we will state how people surely will have many jewels in their crown when they arrive in Heaven because of all the good they have done for others. And perhaps even you and this learner have had this very thought after helping someone else. So if this is the case, was true altruism ever really displayed? While our intentions were good, the final result was another.

If you look at the definition of  intentions (the act or fact of intending; determination to do a specified thing or act in a specified manner (“Intention “, n.d.)), one could then state that altruism is strongly related to good intentions. Good intentions will usually bring up the phrase “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” (Research provides no specific author of this quote (Apocrypha, n.d.).  One such explanation is “good intentions that pave the road to hell are the result of the ego’s attempt to be good because that is how the ego wants to be viewed ~ ‘ as good’. It is the ego’s intention to be good that paves this road to hell, not genuine goodness which comes from the core when we are living a spiritually awakened life (rapidmom, 2008)”. This would be better described by egoistic alternatives that suggest humans help others because of concern about the costs to the self of not helping and humans experience guilt, so we help others simply to avoid this (Brehm, et al, 1999).

In conclusion it is this learner’s opinion that true altruism is rare mainly because as time goes on do we begin to view the help as being something we should gain some type of reward for even if we hope it’s at least in the next life. Also just as mentioned with good intentions, it is this learner’s feelings that motives do not guarantee behavior (Brehm et al., 1999) and provides more evidence that while we might have good intentions,  we don’t always follow through with the behavior that will demonstrate true altruism. 

References

 Apocrypha (n.d). Retrieved February 8, 2009, from

            http://www.samueljohnson.com/apocryph.html

Altruism. (n.d.). In  (Ed.),  Wikipedia. Retrieved February 7, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism#Altruism_in_social_sciences

Brehm, S. S., Kassin, S. M., & Fein, S. (1999). Social Psychology (4th ed.). (pp. 337-380) Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Gire, J. T. (2003). PS 302: Social Psychology Home Page.  Chapter Outlines/Notes. Retrieved from: http://academics.vmi.edu/psy/jg/index.htm

Intention . (n.d.). In YourDictionary. Retrieved February 8, 2009, from http://www.yourdictionary.com/intention

rapidmom. (2008, April 27, 2008). The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Message posted to http://www.oprah.com/community/message/480210#480210