Essay Database

The first explanation of human altruism is the empathy altruism hypothesis carried out by Batson. He suggested that empathy involves feeling an emotional response that is consistent with another person's emotional state, and acting upon this feeling selflessly. He believe that witnessing someone in need will create empathetic concern for them therefore motivating the helper to attempt to alleviate the distress of the other person. Batson hypothesis suggests that some people are more empathetic than …

…to help relatives, aid close kin, young, healthy, wealthy and pre-menopausal. This suggests altruism is driven by different principles from ordinary helpfulness. The next is reciprocal altruism, this states that we help because we think we are going to get the favour returned later. Finally there is biological versus psychological altruism. Biological does have an insight but it doesn't explain the higher thought processes people go through. Also it doesn't explain why people help strangers.