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Article Excerpt
ABSTRACT
A significant amount of research has been conducted examining the social, psychological and behavioral aspects of altruism (Post, Johnson, McCullough & Schloss, 2003), as well as the characteristics and practices of eminent altruists (Sorokin, 1950) but very little research has been done that seeks to understand the nature of the lived experience of spontaneous altruism. This study seeks to fill the gap left by traditional psychosocial research by using descriptive phenomenological methods (Giorgi, 1989) to reveal the structure and meaning of the lived experience of spontaneous altruism. Three participants wrote descriptions of situations in which they engaged in spontaneous acts of altruism. Altruism was defined as a motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing another's welfare (Batson, 1991). These descriptions were then expanded and clarified through a follow up interview. The results of the phenomenological analysis produced a structure of the lived experience of spontaneous altruism consisting of 15 constituent themes. These themes detail the complex emotional, psychological and mental processes that work together in the experience of spontaneous altruism. They also point to the possible roles of love, spirituality, ego-autonomy and creativity in the experience of altruism.
Background of the Problem
The term "altruism," is a derivative from the Latin word "alter" (the other), which literally translated means "other-ism." The term "altruism" emerged as a modern secular scientific concept within the 19th century domain of scientific positivism, as an attempt to substitute empirical reason for religion (or superstition). Altruism is the secular version (without the emotional and spiritual undertones) of the Christian concept of agape love (Post, 2003).
Even within the scientific community though there is controversy about the definition of altruism. Some scientists claim that a truly altruistic act must be free of self-interest, a sort of transcendent self-sacrifice. According to August Comte (1975), who coined the term about 150 years ago, altruism is conceived of as devotion to the welfare of others, based in complete selflessness. On the other side of the spectrum are advocates of universal egoism who claim that true altruism is really impossible and that humans are only capable of egoism. Egoism is doing good because it makes one feel good to do so.
It is my contention that the position taken by advocates of universal egoism is counterintuitive. The fact that human beings are sometimes motivated to help other human beings in an attempt to satisfy their own egoistic needs, does not prove that altruism (the motivation to help another person without benefit to oneself) does not exist (it only proves that egoism exists). Of course egoism exists. It is quite evident that sometimes human beings help others because in doing so they experience positive self-esteem, or affirmation from their peers, or relief from the discomfort of seeing others in pain, or even an avoidance of the possible guilt they would feel later if they didn't help. But the reality still remains, that sometimes human beings help other people at the expense of their own well-being. Sometimes they help when there is no apparent possible reward for their behavior. Batson (1991) takes a less dogmatic path and defines altruism as a motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing another's welfare. This is the definition I will use throughout this study.
Like the Indian tale of the 5 blind men trying to describe an elephant by touching, examining and describing different parts of the creature, the different sub-disciplines within psychology all approach the altruism question from very different perspectives. The sociobiological approach (Wilson, 1975) states that genes are the source of altruistic behavior; the psychoanalytic approach (Freud, 1960) claims that learning rather than genes explains altruistic behavior; the cognitive developmental approach (Erikson, 1982) theorizes that altruism is a result of achieving the generative stage of human development, the behaviorist approach (Skinner, 1974) states that reinforcement and modeling results in altruistic behaviors, while the social psychological approach (Oliner & Oliner, 1988) claims that altruistic behavior is an interaction between personality, values and social factors. Most of these approaches offer a number of sociocultural correlates that seek to explain, at least in part, the source of altruistic behavior. Unfortunately, according to Monroe (1996), "None of the traditionally offered sociocultural correlates of altruism unfailingly and systematically explains altruism or behavior by altruists.... Such traditional analyses offer some limited insight concerning quasi-altruistic acts by rational actors but fail to explain altruism itself" (p. 233). The failure of traditional social science and psychological theories to explain altruism may be due to the fact that they are focusing on the external, and overlooking the essential internal experiential aspects of altruism (including the motivation underlying the act).
Despite their differences, biologically-oriented psychologists, psychoanalysts, developmentalists, behaviorists, and social psychologists generally agree that the focus of attention in understanding altruism and other psychological topics should be observable behavior. (Tjeltveit, 2003). Their materialistic theme is that if you can't measure it it doesn't exist. This limited approach attempts to remove, but actually minimalizes, the subjective and emotional dimensions of the experience of altruism, and in doing so prevents the investigator from accurately identifying and consequently effectively studying altruism. Altruism is not just about helpfulness, it is about the nature and motivation for helping (Batson, 1991).
Somewhere in the study of altruism then, the researcher must identify whether a prosocial act (an observable behavior) is motivated by an egoistic desire (internal motivation of pleasing oneself) or by an altruistic desire (internal motivation to please or help another with no consideration of the benefits to oneself). The most obvious and simplest way to validate the motivation behind an altruistic act is to ask the person performing the prosocial activity to describe their altruistic experience. "Most social psychological research of the topic not only excludes so uncomplicated an approach but deceives subjects by telling them that something else altogether is being studied" (Kohn, 1990, p. 229). This is where a phenomenological study of altruism becomes so important.
In phenomenology, the researcher does not construct an artificial experimental situation, or examine the history and demographics of the altruist as in a case study; instead they go to the very source of altruism, the described experience of the altruist. Since it is possible that an individual, if asked directly, could be ignorant of his or her true motives or may even deliberately misrepresent them (Kohn, 1990), the phenomenological method seeks to unearth these motivations, as well as reveal deeper insights into the nature, meaning and experience of the phenomenon being studied, through the participant's own description of their experience.
Problem Statement
A significant amount of research has been done examining the social, psychological and behavioral aspects of altruism (Post, Johnson, McCullough & Schloss, 2003), as well as the characteristics and practices of eminent altruists (Sorokin, 1950) but very little research has been done that seeks to understand the nature of the lived experience of spontaneous altruism. This study seeks to fill the gap left by traditional psychosocial research by using descriptive phenomenological methods (Giorgi, 1989) to reveal the structure and meaning of the lived experience of spontaneous altruism.
Literature Review
Much of the social psychological research that has attempted to explore, explain or understand the behavior of altruists has focused primarily on the helping, charitable, and volunteer activities undertaken by traditional rational actors (Monroe, 1991 & Morgan, Goddard, & Givens, 1997). Even the many research studies on altruism and love documented by Post, Johnson, MCCullough & Scholoss (2003) tend to focus primarily on the social, psychological, religious and behavioral aspects of altruism, leaving the emotional, spiritual and experiential aspects of altruism relatively untouched.
Sorokin (1950) sought to explore these factors in more depth through his comprehensive study of both eminent and everyday altruists. The results of his studies point to a deeper understanding of the variety of characteristics and situational factors that contribute to altruism, and also shed light on the different methods used to cultivate altruism. But what is still missing is an understanding of what happens within the individual leading up to and during an act of altruism.
What has been somewhat successful in addressing the experiential aspects of altruism has been Batson's (1991) research into the correlation between empathy and altruism. Seeking to prove his hypothesis that empathic emotion evokes altruistic motivation, Batson reviewed approximately 25 research studies that sought to determine the true motivation behind pro-social behavior. The focus of these studies centered on whether helping behavior was ultimately sourced in or motivated by egoistic concerns such as; aversive-arousal reduction (Piliavin & Piliavin, 1973), punishment avoidance (Archer, 1984) or reward seeking (Smith, Keating, & Stotland, 1989).
Batson examined each study in detail and came to the conclusion that there was "no clear support for any of the three egoistic alternatives to the empathy-altruism hypothesis" (Batson, 1991, p. 174). It is Batson's (1991) contention that since there is at present no plausible egoistic explanation for the results of these studies, we can conclude that altruistic concern for the welfare of others is not only within the human repertoire, it is also tied to the human empathic ability to adopt the perspective of another person in need (Smith, 1853). Batson claims that it is the empathy-altruism connection that allows us to act on behalf of someone else with no consideration of the possible benefits to ourselves, and even at the expense of our own welfare. This perspective states that any rewards a person receives as a consequence of acting altruistically are not the source of the motivation to...
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