Altruism is when one helps another person for no reward, and perhaps even at some cost to oneself. Altruism is thus seen as an unselfish interest in helping another person. Wesly Autry’s courageous act of saving the young art student is clearly an act of altruism. He put himself at risk in order to save the life of a stranger. This is also the case of heroic helpers who willingly risked their own lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.  You might argue that the purest form of prosocial behavior is motivated by altruism. In the following chapter, you will investigate how psychologists attempt to explain this behavior.

Kin selection theory predicts that the degree of altruism depends on the genetic similarity of individuals in a group. The closer the genetic relationship between the helper and those needing help, the greater the chance for altruistic behavior. This has been supported by a number of empirical studies with animals. Altruistic behavior could appear to be unselfish but some argue that it should, in fact, be seen as selfish. Dawkins (1976) proposed “the selfish gene theory”, arguing that there is an innate drive for the survival and propagation of one’s own genes. It is not the individuals or the species, but rather the genes that compete for survival.  Any organism will try to maximize its “inclusive fitness”- that is, the number of copies of its genes passed on globally, not necessarily by a particular individual. Since animals living in social groups share many genes, altruistic behavior is seen as a way to guarantee that one’s own genes will be passed on to future generations. Seen from this perspective, it becomes clear why individuals are willing to sacrifice themselves to protect the lives of their kin.

Although this theory is supported by extensive observations and documentation of altruistic occurrences in the animal kingdom, it does not explain why a smaller number of people, like Wesley Autrey, help complete strangers. As with all evolutionary theory, it is difficult - if not impossible - to test under controlled conditions.  The Selfish Gene makes it sound like our genes can somehow identify similar genes in a group.  This appears far-fetched.  But the evolutionary psychologists argue that it is a question of proximity – those that are physically close to us are most likely to be most closely related to us.  Even though in modern society this may no longer be true, it would make sense from an evolutionary perspective that this would be the reason for such behavior.  

Most of the “research” on human beings and altruism is based on anecdotal data – stories like the one above about Wesley Autrey or tales of the horrors of war where one person sacrifices his or her life for another. These stories are told by those who witnessed the event and often even by the altruist. However, asking someone “What were you thinking” after the fact leads to problems of both memory distortion and demand characteristics.  

Latané and Darley suggested a term for not helping someone in need of help: bystanderism. They suggested that the reason for not helping Kitty Genovese was that the witnesses assumed that others were watching the incident, so they thought that other people would call for help. The presence of others seems to determine whether or not people will intervene.
When several people watch an incident like the Kitty Genovese murder, they seem to reason that somebody else can, should, and probably will offer assistance. This is known as the diffusion of responsibility. This could explain why people are generally more likely to help when they are the only person available to offer assistance. Darley and Latane (1968) did a laboratory experiment in which they told student participants that they were going to be interviewed about the kind of personal problems faced by students when they first move to university. They were told that in order to preserve anonymity they would be interviewed over an intercom. Some of the students were told there were five other people in the discussion group; some were told that there were only two other students, and some were told that there was only one other student taking part in the study. All the comments they heard from other group members were actually pre-recorded. At a certain point, one of the voices cried for help and made sounds of severe choking, as if the person was having an epileptic seizure. When the students thought they were the only person there, 85 percent rushed to help. When they thought there was one other person, this dropped to 65 percent. And when they thought there were four other people, the figure dropped again, to 31 percent. This study shows that believing somebody else will intervene lowers the probability of a person taking responsibility.
When in a group, people often look to others to know how to react - this is called informational social influence. If people see that others do not react to what seems to be an emergency, then they will not react either - even though there may be a problem like in the Kitty Genovese case. This is termed pluralistic ignorance. This was tested by Latané and Rodin (1969). They asked participants to sit in a waiting room before participating in an experiment. Here the participants heard the female experimenter fall and cry out in the next room. The participants reacted more often and more quickly when they were alone than when they were sitting with a confederate who showed no reaction to the noise and did not offer assistance. The researchers concluded that in order for people to help, they need to understand clearly that help is needed. During post-experimental interviews, the participants revealed that they had felt anxious when they heard the experimenter fall, but since the others in the waiting room appeared calm, they concluded that there was no emergency. Actually, participants were experiencing a conflict between two social rules: "You must help somebody in need" and "You should do what everybody does.” Since often when an emergency happens there is some confusion as to what is actually happening, we look to others to figure out what is the most appropriate response.

Piliavin and his colleagues have proposed the more complex arousal–cost–reward model (1969). The model says that arousal is a motivational factor because it is unpleasant and the bystander is motivated to reduce it.  However, before helping, the individual will assess possible costs and rewards associated with helping, or not helping. 

Do the study on Piliavin 

Cross-cultural research on pro-social behavior has shown that culture plays a role in one’s likelihood to help in some situations.