The hand of compassion Monroe, Kristen Renwick
2004., 20131031, 2013, 2004, 2004-01-01, 20040101
eBook
Through moving interviews with five ordinary people who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, Kristen Monroe casts new light on a question at the heart of ethics: Why do people risk their lives for ...strangers and what drives such moral choice? Monroe's analysis points not to traditional explanations--such as religion or reason--but to identity. The rescuers' perceptions of themselves in relation to others made their extraordinary acts spontaneous and left the rescuers no choice but to act. To turn away Jews was, for them, literally unimaginable. In the words of one German Czech rescuer, "The hand of compassion was faster than the calculus of reason."
At the heart of this unusual book are interviews with the rescuers, complex human beings from all parts of the Third Reich and all walks of life: Margot, a wealthy German who saved Jews while in exile in Holland; Otto, a German living in Prague who saved more than 100 Jews and provides surprising information about the plot to kill Hitler; John, a Dutchman on the Gestapo's "Most Wanted List"; Irene, a Polish student who hid eighteen Jews in the home of the German major for whom she was keeping house; and Knud, a Danish wartime policeman who took part in the extraordinary rescue of 85 percent of his country's Jews.
We listen as the rescuers themselves tell the stories of their lives and their efforts to save Jews. Monroe's analysis of these stories draws on philosophy, ethics, and political psychology to suggest why and how identity constrains our choices, both cognitively and ethically. Her work offers a powerful counterpoint to conventional arguments about rational choice and a valuable addition to the literature on ethics and moral psychology. It is a dramatic illumination of the power of identity to shape our most basic political acts, including our treatment of others.
But always Monroe returns us to the rescuers, to their strong voices, reminding us that the Holocaust need not have happened and revealing the minds of the ethically exemplary as they negotiated the moral quicksand that was the Holocaust.
Abstract
To entice new donors and spread awareness of the charitable cause, many charity campaigns encourage donors to broadcast their charitable acts with self-promotion devices such as donor pins, ...logoed apparel, and social media hashtags. However, this voluntary-publicity strategy may not be particularly attractive because potential donors may worry that observers will attribute their publicized charitable behavior to “impure” image motives rather than “pure” altruistic motives. We propose and test a counterintuitive campaign strategy—obligatory publicity, which requires prospective donors to use a self-promotion device as a prerequisite for contributing to the campaign. Five studies (N = 10,866) test the application and effectiveness of the proposed strategy. The first three studies, including two field experiments, find that obligatory-publicity campaigns recruit more contributions and campaign promoters than voluntary-publicity campaigns. The last two studies demonstrate that the obligatory-publicity strategy produces a greater effect among people with stronger image motives and that the effect is mitigated when the publicized charitable act signals a low level of altruism. Finally, we discuss limitations and implications of this research.
A growing body of evidence shows that humans are remarkably altruistic primates. Food sharing and division of labor play an important role in all human societies, and cooperation extends beyond the ...bounds of close kinship and networks of reciprocating partners. In humans, altruism is motivated at least in part by empathy and concern for the welfare of others. Although altruistic behavior is well-documented in other primates, the range of altruistic behaviors in other primate species, including the great apes, is much more limited than it is in humans. Moreover, when altruism does occur among other primates, it is typically limited to familiar group members—close kin, mates, and reciprocating partners. This suggests that there may be fundamental differences in the social preferences that motivate altruism across the primate order, and there is currently considerable interest in how we came to be such unusual apes. A body of experimental studies designed to examine the phylogenetic range of prosocial sentiments and behavior is beginning to shed some light on this issue. In experimental settings, chimpanzees and tamarins do not consistently take advantage of opportunities to deliver food rewards to others, although capuchins and marmosets do deliver food rewards to others in similar kinds of tasks. Although chimpanzees do not satisfy experimental criteria for prosociality in food delivery tasks, they help others complete tasks to obtain a goal. Differences in performance across species and differences in performance across tasks are not yet fully understood and raise new questions for further study.
Abstract
This article explores the consequences of psychological ownership going beyond the specific relationship with the possession to guide behavior in unrelated situations. Across seven studies, ...we find that psychological ownership leads to a boost in self-esteem, which encourages individuals to be more altruistic. In addition, we show that the effect of psychological ownership on prosocial behavior is not driven by self-efficacy, perceived power, reciprocity, feeling well-off, or affect. Examining materialism and mine-me sensitivity as individual differences moderating the effect of psychological ownership on prosocial behavior, we find that the effect does not hold for individuals low on materialism or mine-me sensitivity. Finally, we attenuate the effect of psychological ownership on prosocial tendencies by making the negative attributes of one’s possessions relevant.
Is altruism always morally good, or is the morality of altruism fundamentally shaped by the social opportunity costs that often accompany helping decisions? Across four studies, we reveal that in ...cases of realistic tradeoffs in social distance for gains in welfare where helping socially distant others necessitates not helping socially closer others with the same resources, helping is deemed as less morally acceptable. Making helping decisions at a cost to socially closer others also negatively affects judgments of relationship quality (Study 2) and in turn, decreases cooperative behavior with the helper (Study 3). Ruling out an alternative explanation of physical distance accounting for the effects in Studies 1 to 3, social distance continued to impact moral acceptability when physical distance across social targets was matched (Study 4). These findings reveal that attempts to decrease biases in helping may have previously unconsidered consequences for moral judgments, relationships, and cooperation.
Este estudio experimental, en el que participaron 118 estudiantes universitarios, investiga como las pistas ambientales y altruistas inducen el comportamiento de ahorro energetico, e interactuan con ...los valores ambientales y altruistas, examinando la influencia de variables de contexto o situacionales en estos comportamientos e intenciones, y el papel de estos valores como predictores de ahorro energetico. El priming conceptual de ambiente y de altruismo operacionaliza las pistas situacionales. Los resultados revelan una interaccion entre las variables situacionales y los valores personales: el priming de ambiente inducio mas comportamiento de ahorro energetico entre los individuos con valores altruistas inferiores. El mismo efecto no se observa para la intencion. Cuando el priming de ambiente y de altruismo estaba presente, los individuos con valores altruistas menores tuvieron menos intenciones de ahorro energetico. Estos resultados subrayan la importancia de distinguir marcos y motivos ambientales y altruistas al explicar el comportamiento de ahorro energetico. Palabras clave ahorro de energia; altruismo; ecologismo; priming; valores. This experimental study, in which 118 university students participated, addresses how environmental and altruistic cues induce energy-saving behavior and intention, and their interaction with environmental and altruistic values, thus testing the influence of context or situational variables in energy-saving behavior and intention. Additionally, it does an empirical approach to the role that environmental and altruistic values may have as individual predictors of energy-saving. Environmental and altruistic situational cues are operationalized by environment and altruism conceptual priming. The results reveal an interaction between situational variables and personal values: environment priming induced more energy-saving behavior among individuals with lower altruistic values. The same effect is not observed for energy-saving intention. When the environment and altruism priming were present, individuals with lower altruistic values had less energy-saving intentions. These results underline the importance of distinguishing environmental and altruistic frames and motives when explaining energy-saving behavior. Keywords energy saving; altruism; environmentalism; priming; values.
When corporations make an effort to be socially responsible beyond what is required by the law, this effort is often described as strategic—made mainly for the shareholders’ or managers’ benefit. A ...large body of literature corroborates this belief. But, could the incentives for corporate social responsibility (CSR) come from an altruistic inclination fostered by the social capital of the region in which the firm is headquartered? We investigate whether this phenomenon exists by examining the association between the social capital in the region and the firm’s CSR. We find that a firm from a high social capital region exhibits higher CSR. This result suggests that the self-interest of shareholders or mangers does not explain all of the firm’s CSR, but the altruistic inclination from the region might also play a role.
We investigate parochial altruism, the combination of in-group altruism and out-group hostility, in an experimental conflict game preceded by a prisoner’s dilemma. Our data are consistent with ...parochial altruism, but cannot be explained by in-group pro-sociality or out-group hostility alone.
► We study an experimental conflict game with and without in-group punishment. ► Our data are consistent with parochial altruism. ► They cannot be explained by in-group pro-sociality or out-group hostility alone.
One way to maintain cooperation between unrelated individuals and decrease the chance of providing costly aid to those who will not reciprocate is by selectively helping on the basis of the content ...of previous interactions. In the present study, we sought to determine whether the earliest instances of human helping behavior show specificity. In three experiments, we found that infants preferred to help an individual who, in a previous interaction, intended to provide a toy over one who did not (Experiment 1) and that infants consider this positive intention even without a positive outcome (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 provided a more detailed examination of the basis of selection, suggesting that infants are not solely avoiding unwilling individuals, but also selectively helping those who have shown a willingness to provide. Taken together, these experiments indicate that early helping behaviors show characteristics of the rich reciprocal relationships observed in adult prosocial behavior.
At present, China is paying more and more attention to sustainable development. Saving energy is an important guarantee for sustainable development. At the same time, many studies have found that ...changing people's energy consumption behaviours can contribute to solving the high energy consumption problem. Thus, this research chooses the urban residents in China as its object, and studies the factors influencing residents’ habitual energy-saving behaviours. We establish a comprehensive theoretical model suitable for this study based on TPB and NAM model. Through on-the-spot investigation, data collection, and model establishment, we find that the daily energy-saving behaviours of urban residents in China are mostly motivated by “altruism”. In addition, the external factors (social norms and policy environment) have a significant impact on residents’ daily energy-saving behaviour. Based on this, we put forward some specific policy suggestions from three aspects: policy effectiveness, information behind the big data and the publicity by the Internet.
•Establishing a comprehensive theoretical model based on TPB and NAM model.•Dividing the influencing factors into two types: altruistic and egoistic factors.•It shows that the behaviour of urban residents in China were motivated by altruism.•We found the external factors (social norm and policy environment) are significant.
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