The compatibility of self-sacrifice and self-interest: Social and psychological supports of helping in social relationships.

Abstract

The central issue addressed in this dissertation is the paradox proposed by the prevalence of helping: how can self-sacrificing behavior be maintained? The theoretical model I propose (Chapter 1) holds that early in the evolutionary history of human social life, in small group environments conducive to reciprocity, helping was compensated by inclusive fitness-enhancing benefits. Under these conditions, social and psychological processes developed that encouraged helpers to incur the cost of helping and provided immediate rewards. These processes continue to operate in the radically changed current human environment, supporting helping even among strangers. In an empirical study (Chapter 2) participants described incidents of helping actually given and received with close friends, casual acquaintances, and strangers, providing a broad range of naturally occurring helping behaviors. I sorted these incidents into 72 homogeneous categories of helping behavior and , in a second study, participants rated the 72 helping behaviors on 22 diverse characteristics. A factor analysis of the helping behaviors yielded four factors: Casual, Substantial Personal, Emotional, and Emergency helping. A study of the perceived cost to the helper and benefit to the recipient of actually experienced helping behaviors (Chapter 3) shows that the perceived benefits of behaviors exceed their costs, as required by Trivers' (1971) model of reciprocal altruism. Further analyses yield strong, interpretable effects, some predicted and some not: relationship between helper and recipient strongly affects perceived costs and benefits in the directions expected from reciprocity-based theories; sex differences in perceived costs and benefits are negligible. Surprisingly, helpers underestimate the costs and benefits of the help they provide and overestimate the costs and benefits of the help they received. This perceptual bias would be disadvantageous under Trivers' model which requires helpers to monitor others' costs and benefits, but since people need only insure that their own benefits exceed their own costs (eliminating a logical flaw in Trivers' model and simplifying cognitive dem and s on helpers), non-veridical estimations of others' costs and benefits are unimportant. Furthermore, this bias is another process which encourages helping by leaving people feeling indebted, and it counteracts the temptation towards non-reciprocation that Trivers emphasizes.Ph.D.Social psychologyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162498/1/9013971.pd