Altruism,Social Responsibility,and Government Support For Social Welfare

The study concerns altruistic behaviour in Hong Kong and its relation to social responsibility and support of government responsibility for social welfare. The findings indicated that the community as a whole is likely to engage in altruistic acts. The responses reflect a sense of social responsibility as the most important factor contributing to the explanation of altruism. Independent of other characteristics, those respondents who were more socially responsible were more altruistic. These findings suggest that the people's willingness to help others is largely independent of concern about the interests of society as a priority of responsibility. The general finding is that people are more concerned with individual or familial interests and would sacrifice the interests of society in situations where the two are in conflict.     

Physician behavior and conditional altruism: the effects of payment system and uncertain health benefit

This paper experimentally investigates the altruistic behavior of physicians and whether this behavior is affected by payment system and uncertainty in health outcome. Subjects in the experiment take on the role of physicians and decide on the provision of medical care for different types of patients, who are identical in all respects other than the degree to which a given level of medical treatment affects their health. We investigate physician altruism from the perspective of ethical principles, by categorizing physicians according to how well their treatment decisions align with different principles for priority setting. The experiment shows that many physicians are altruistic toward their patients but also that the degree of altruism varies across patients with different medical needs. We find a strong effect of payment system that is overall unaffected by the introduction of risk and ambiguity in patients’ health outcomes. There is, however, substantial heterogeneity across individuals, in particular under the capitation payment system where physicians’ responses to the introduction of uncertainty in patient health are modulated by their own generic risk and ambiguity preferences.

     

Altruism, Spite and Competition in Bargaining Games

This paper shows that altruism may be beneficial in bargaining when there is competition for bargaining partners. In a game with random proposers, the most altruistic player has the highest material payoff if players are sufficiently patient. However, this advantage is eroded as the discount factor increases, and if players are perfectly patient altruism and spite become irrelevant for material payoffs.     

The Experimetrics of Public Goods: Inferring Motivations from Contributions

In public goods experiments, stochastic choice, censoring and motivational heterogeneity give scope for disagreement over the extent of unselfishness, and whether it is reciprocal or altruistic. We show that these problems can be addressed econometrically, by estimating a finite mixture model to isolate types, incorporating double censoring and a tremble term. Most subjects act selfishly, but a substantial proportion are reciprocal with altruism playing only a marginal role. Isolating reciprocators enables a test of Sugden’s model of voluntary contributions. We estimate that reciprocators display a self-serving bias relative to the model.      

Disney’s modern heroine Pocahontas: revealing age-old gender stereotypes and role discontinuity under a façade of liberation

Disney’s animated heroine Pocahontas has been touted as a new type of protagonist differing from her predecessors whose lives revolve around men. Pocahontas’ romance eventually does become subordinate to her role in protecting the social fabric of her village. Yet in placing the needs of her community before her own personal desires, she fulfills societal expectations of today wherein young women are supposed to progress from selfish absorption in relationships to selfless dedication nurturing others. Pocahontas, then, models the submersion of a young woman’s desires to allow a commitment to selfless altruism.     

道德利他现象的制度伦理分析

道德利他是现实道德生活之中一种特殊的道德现象，它与制度伦理有着紧密的联系。一定的制度和制度体系既可能构成道德利他现象生成的障碍，也可能构成道德利他现象生成的动力。从正式制度和非正式制度两个层面出发，可以构建出不同性质的促进道德利他现象生成的对策体系。     

Beneficial Effect of Altruism on Well-Being Among Chinese College Students: The Role of Self-Esteem and Family Socioeconomic Status

ABSTRACT

The motivation for voluntary social service has been identified as altruism. This study aimed to establish the relationship between altruism and well-being in Chinese college students at the undergraduate level. To better understand altruism, two groups were selected, one that used self-reporting and another related to the perception of peers. Self-reported altruism and self-reported decisions to help in real-life situations were measured in the first sample (N₁ = 525); peer-rated altruism was measured in the second sample (N₂ = 189). The results showed (when socially desirable responding was controlled) (1) self-reported altruism and self-reported decisions to help exerted significant direct effects on well-being, while peer-rated altruism did not; (2) self-esteem mediated the effects of self-reported altruism, self-reported decisions to help, and peer-rated altruism on well-being; (3) family socioeconomic status moderated the effects of self-reported altruism on well-being via self-esteem; college students with low family socioeconomic status were more likely to reap benefits from altruism. These findings confirm the emotion-elevating effects of altruism in collectivistic societies like China, which may encourage more people to engage in voluntary social service. Future research should adopt longitudinal or experimental designs with a more nationally representative sample to better confirm these findings.     

The therapeutic misconception,beneficence, and respect

In order to provide benefits to society, human medical trials must place subjects at risk of harm. This activity is thought to be justified in part by the consent of the subjects involved. But, studies have shown that most such consents are based on a therapeutic misconception (TM); the false belief of subjects that their researchers will act as their personal physicians (seeking their benefit and protecting them from harm), rather than placing them at risk of harm for the good of others. Toleration by researchers of the TM in their subjects is a form of “informational manipulation”; that renders consent procedures disrespectful to subject autonomy. Consent obtained from subjects who labor under a TM is neither voluntary nor informed; as long as they have not been disabused of the TM, the action they take in enrolling in a trial is not the one they intend nor is it autonomously chosen. Changes in consent procedures should be adopted to ensure that all subjects are aware inter alia that (a) the health interests of future patients (as well as the researchers’ and their sponsors’ financial interests) may be more important to researchers than the interest of a subject in his or her health, and (b) normal subjects neither understand nor believe this when told. Close attention to the response of prospective subjects to this information should allow for the exclusion of all but the truly altruistic. However, the result of conscientious implementation of such policies would likely be that human medical research could no longer be conducted on more than a minimal level.     

An experimental investigation of intrinsic motivations for giving

This paper presents results from a modified dictator experiment aimed at distinguishing and quantifying intrinsic motivations for giving. We employ an experimental design with three treatments that vary the recipient (experimenter, charity) and amount passed (fixed, varying). We find giving to the experimenter not to be significantly different from giving to a charity, when the amount the subject donates crowds out the amount donated by the experimenter such that the charity always receives a fixed amount. This result suggests that the latter treatment, first used by Crumpler and Grossman (J Public Econ 92(5–6):1011–1021, 2008), does not provide a clean test of warm glow motivation. We then propose a new method of detecting warm glow motivation based on the idea that in a random-lottery incentive (RLI) scheme, such as the one we employ, warm glow accumulates and this may lead to satiation, whereas purely altruistic motivation does not. We also provide bounds on the magnitudes of warm glow and pure altruism as motives that drive giving in our experiment.     

Model for the distribution process of attitudes in a two-party-system

This article considers a social system where a political decision is to be made. Only two alternatives are permitted: YES or NO. Within the total population A there are two groups, one (X) campaigns for a YES decision, the other one (Y) argues for a NO decision. It is assumed that every individual within the total population has the same opportunities in the field of communications. The question to be answered is as follows: How are the opinions within the total population A distributed after a certain length of time. In our model we use a quantitative concept: The ‘Influence of Opinion in a Two-Party-System’. It is assumed that the relative influence of a group of people having a certain opinion is the stronger, the faster they are able to publicize their decision within the total population A. This and other assumptions (axioms) are formulated more precisely in the following discussion.     

On the Relative Strengths of Altruism and Fairness

Some researchers have attributed deviations from selfish behavior to fairness. Violations of fairness theories, however, are observed in experimental dictator games with transfer rates greater than 1 (a transfer of x from the dictator yields an income of tx for the beneficiary, where x < tx): the dictator’s final income is less than the beneficiary’s. We theoretically propose that dictator giving also involves altruism, further supporting our claim with empirical evidence from four separate samples of dictator game experiments. Our nonlinear specification allows the relative measurement of the independent motives in dictator behavior.     

Volunteerism Among Social Work Students During Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

Abstract

This study examined volunteer activities and predictors of volunteerism among graduate and undergraduate social work students (N = 416) from four universities in the Gulf Coast area following hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The convenience sample drawn from all social work students at these universities included 89% females, and 52% of the students were in a master's level program. Sixty-one percent of the respondents were African American and 31% were non-Hispanic white. The majority of students volunteered (97%) despite experiencing a range of hurricane-related stressors. Multivariate analyses yielded a regression model that best predicted heightened volunteerism, which included age, school site, previous volunteer experience, hurricane-related stressors, altruism, and increased commitment to social work values (R ² = .35). The strongest predictors of volunteerism were stressor, increased commitment to social work values, and altruism (betas = .30, .26, and .21 respectively). The findings are consistent with previous research on volunteering in times of disaster and with current thinking about posttraumatic growth .     

The Significance of Affirmative Action for theSouls of White Folk: Further Implications of a Helping Model

We develop further our model of affirmative action as help (Pratkanis & Turner, 1996b; Turner & Pratkanis, 1994) by looking at the impact of aid on the donor. White Americans often take one of three approaches toaffirmative action. First, they can reject affirmative action because of their own personal frustrations. Second, they can engage in selective aid that maintains the basic patterns of social dominance. Both of these approaches can damage the psychological functioning of Whites. Third, White Americans can proactively seek to remove discriminatory barriers in a process we call democratic altruism, thereby opening the possibility of learning from diverse others and growth as a person. We conclude by discussing tactics for promoting democratic altruism.     

Bidirectional relations among empathy‐related traits,prosocial moral reasoning,and prosocial behaviors

This study examined the longitudinal links among empathic concern, perspective taking, prosocial moral reasoning, and prosocial behaviors. Four hundred and seventeen adolescents (225 girls; M_age = 14.70 years) from public schools in Spain completed measures of those constructs in three successive years. Path analyses showed support for the notion that empathic concern and prosocial moral reasoning accounted for the relations between perspective taking in earlier adolescence and later altruistic and public forms of helping. Moreover, there was support for a reverse causal model such that empathic concern and prosocial moral reasoning mediated the relations between altruistic (but not public) helping behaviors in earlier adolescence and later perspective taking. The implications for cognitive developmental and social cognitive theories of prosocial development were discussed.     

The therapeutic misconception,beneficence, and respect

In order to provide benefits to society, human medical trials must place subjects at risk of harm. This activity is thought to be justified in part by the consent of the subjects involved. But, studies have shown that most such consents are based on a therapeutic misconception (TM); the false belief of subjects that their researchers will act as their personal physicians (seeking their benefit and protecting them from harm), rather than placing them at risk of harm for the good of others. Toleration by researchers of the TM in their subjects is a form of "informational manipulation" that renders consent procedures disrespectful to subject autonomy. Consent obtained from subjects who labor under a TM is neither voluntary nor informed; as long as they have not been disabused of the TM, the action they take in enrolling in a trial is not the one they intend nor is it autonomously chosen. Changes in consent procedures should be adopted to ensure that all subjects are aware inter alia that (a) the health interests of future patients (as well as the researchers' and their sponsors' financial interests) may be more important to researchers than the interest of a subject in his or her health, and (b) normal subjects neither understand nor believe this when told. Close attention to the response of prospective subjects to this information should allow for the exclusion of all but the truly altruistic. However, the result of conscientious implementation of such policies would likely be that human medical research could no longer be conducted on more than a minimal level.     

Why Do They Help People with AIDS/HIV Online? Altruistic Motivation and Moral Identity

Abstract

With the help of information and communication technologies, people can enjoy online social services, especially some stigmatized groups. In China, it is popular for AIDS patients to seek help online since the anonymity of cyberspace can protect people from stigmas and mocking evaluations. This article conducts a content analysis on 216 volunteers’ applications in an AIDS forum and measures their online helping behavior after application to explore what motivates volunteers to help AIDS patients online, how it affects them, and why the moral implication attached to AIDS fails to prevent them. The author indicates that helping behavior may be inspired by varied motivation from altruism to egoism, including kindness, values, sympathy, reward, atonement and benefit. Among them, the closer to altruism the motivation is, the more likely it is to be mentioned, while the “reward” motivation has the most significant effect. This article then examines volunteers’ moral identity of AIDS, arguing that the moral identity of humanitarianism can counteract the moral criticism of high-risk behavior related to AIDS. Future research in this area should examine the relationship between motivation and moral identity, the change in different phases, and compare different helping situations to encourage more forms of social services and supportive behavior.     

Retrospective on the utility theory of von Neumann and Morgenstern

This article offers an exegesis of the passages in von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944, 1947, 1953) that discuss their conception of utility. It is occasioned by two factors. First, as we approach the semicentennial of the publication of Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, its immense impact on economic thought in the intervening years encourages serious reflection on its authors' ideas. Second, misleading statements about the theory continue to appear. The article will have accomplished its purpose if it helps others appreciate the genius and spirit of the theory of utility fashioned by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern.     

Motivation and Commissioning: Perceived and Expressed Motivations of Care Home Providers

Commissioning of social care for older people has seen major changes since the early 1990s. Considerable responsibility now rests with local authority staff, whose views of care home providers’ motivations, their perceived strengths and weaknesses as service providers, will have a bearing on commissioning decisions. We examine commissioners’ views of provider motivations in eight English local authorities and compare their perceived motivations with providers’ expressed motives. Data were collected through semi‐structured face‐to‐face interviews with commissioners and care home providers. Providers are generally perceived by commissioners as highly altruistic, but also relatively financially motivated individuals. Further analysis revealed significantly different views towards profit‐maximizing, which commissioners perceive as very important, while providers consider it to be of little motivational value. Private sector providers are described by commissioners as significantly more motivated by personal income. Associations are found between commissioners’ perceptions of motivations and the nature of their relationships with providers. Perceptions of providers’ motivations appear important within the commissioning framework.