Methodology for diagnosing socio-psychological attitudes of an individual in the motivational-need sphere (scales of altruism and egoism) Author: O. F. Potemkina. Purpose. Identification of the degree of expression of socio-psychological attitudes. Instructions. Answer every question

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Complex motives and social motivations Human behavior is complex, and there is usually more than one motivating reason for any action. I believe that the digital photographs from Abu Ghraib prison were also the product of multiple motives and complex interpersonal relationships, rather than

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PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR.

Altruism concept

Motives of altruism. Social exchange.

1.3 Prosocial behavior motivated by empathy.

Prosocial behavior as normative behavior: norms with

Social responsibility and reciprocity.

The evolutionist approach is the protection of the species.

Determinants of altruistic behavior.

2.1 Situational factors facilitating the provision of assistance.

Personal influences.

Formation of motivation for prosocial behavior.

The phenomenon of prosocial behavior and motives of altruism.

Altruism concept

Psychology, at its best, has always thought about the improvement of human nature. And two fundamentally different paths have always been open to researchers: to fight human shortcomings or to create conditions for the manifestation and consolidation of the best qualities. Let's look at this problem within the framework of a specific and very relevant topic - altruism in human relations.

Altruistic behavior- actions aimed at the benefit of another person, despite the fact that the donor has a choice whether to perform them or not.

Almost all scientific information regarding altruism in Russian-language literature is of American origin. However, even in American psychological science, the study of helping behavior, according to H. Heckhausen, proceeded along side, extremely overgrown paths, and on psychological highways - the study of abnormal and unsightly sides of human nature. There are many reasons for the neglect of the study of prosocial behavior.

The dominant schools of psychology psychoanalysis and classical learning theory were quite skeptical about the possibility of manifestation of actual altruistic behavior, because they believed that even ultimately it serves to achieve certain personal goals of the subject.

Psychoanalysis looked for those behind altruistic behavior repressed drives.

According to the fundamental learning theories hedonistic principle , helping subject Always had to have a positive reinforcement balance. In particular, there is a phenomenon called "paradox of altruism"". These are usually actions when the helper causes damage to himself personally through his action, and what is especially noteworthy is that often even foreseeing this damage in advance, he does not refuse to provide assistance. A possible explanation for this may be that in the absence of external reinforcements, the helper (experiencing sympathy, compassion, empathy) ultimately reinforces itself for his selfless action.

In the second half of the 1960s, the number of studies on helping behavior increased in response to events that caused a strong public outcry.

The first event was the Eichmann trial, which drew attention to the people who, during World War II, saved Jews from extermination in conditions of the deepest secrecy and enormous risk to themselves and their loved ones. There were significantly more of them, but only 27 people were able to survive and emigrate. They were not going to talk about their past, but, fortunately, the secret becomes clear not only in cases of dirty and base deeds. As a result, a psychological society was established in the United States with the aim of clarifying the personal characteristics of these 27 amazing people (an attempt made in line with personality psychology turned out to be fruitless, although during the interviews some common characteristics were revealed for them - a thirst for adventure, identification with parental moral models, social criticality).

Another event is the murder of Katherine Genovese. She was killed on the night of March 13, 1964 in New York City, not on Station Square in the Bronx. The inhabitants of the surrounding houses, 38 people, clung to the dark windows, watched as the killer struggled with the screaming woman for half an hour, taking her life only with the third knife blow. None of those watching intervened or even called the police. This crime story shook the whole of America. Experts in various fields of knowledge could not find an explanation. Instead, global factors such as anonymity, urbanization or overcrowding were blamed.

Such a shocking event prompted some social psychologists to turn to the study of helping actions in the field, close to real life.

Under providing assistance , altruistic or prosocial ( these terms are used interchangeably) behavior is usually understood any action aimed at the well-being of other people. These actions are often very diverse. Their range can extend from manifestations of kindness, charitable activities to helping a person who finds himself in danger, in a difficult or distressing situation, and even up to his salvation at the cost of one's own life.

Prosocial behavior May be assessed and measured By expenses of the helper. For example, by the intensity of attention, the amount of time, the amount of labor, the significance of monetary expenses, relegation to the background or abandonment of one’s desires and plans, self-sacrifice.

G. Murray in his list of motives he introduced for assistance activities special basic motive by calling him thoughtfulness(need nіrtіrаpse). He describes the distinctive features of the actions corresponding to it as follows: "Show compassion and meet the needs of a helpless other - a child or anyone else who is weak, crippled, tired, inexperienced, infirm, humiliated, lonely, rejected, sick, who has failed or is experiencing mental turmoil. Help another in danger. Feed, look after, support, console, protect, soothe, care, heal".

J. Macauley and I. Berkowitz determine altruism How " behavior performed for the benefit of another person without expectation of any external reward".

However, what ultimately benefits another and therefore appears at first glance to be a helping activity may nevertheless be determined by completely different driving forces. In some cases, doubts arise about the extent to which the person providing assistance is guided primarily by concern for the welfare of the object of his help, that is, to what extent he is driven by altruistic motives. In this regard, Bierhoff (1990) identified two conditions, determining the prosocial reaction:

1. intention to act for the benefit of another;

2. freedom of choice (that is, actions not due to professional duties).

H. Heckhausen, having looked through many scientific definitions, came to the conclusion that an excellent example altruistic behavior- a parable about the Good Samaritan, described in the Gospel: “... A certain man was walking from Jerusalem to Jericho and was caught by robbers, who took off his clothes, wounded him and left, leaving him barely alive. A Samaritan, passing by, found him and, seeing him, took pity and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine; and, putting him on his donkey, brought him to the inn and took care of him; and the next day, as he was leaving, he took out two denarii, gave them to the keeper and said to him: take care of him; and if you spend anything more, when I return, I will give it to you.”

The Samaritan's altruistic act is so remarkable because

v it was carried out with lack of social pressure;

v not in front of a viewer capable of appreciating it;

v him strict moral standards were not prescribed(as a priest);

v because he took on the labor and costs, without hoping for reward.

Since the creation of the great humanistic teachings - Christ, Buddha, Mohammed - altruism has been and remains the greatest value of humanity, it is glorified in literature and passed on to their children in words as the best role model by parents of almost all continents and countries.

1. 2 Motives of altruism. Social exchange (providing assistance as disguised selfishness).

Main question altruism research is a question of motives underlying such reactions. Scientists who conducted research on bystander intervention in emergency situations could not find personal determinants of assistance, i.e. no direct influence of personality traits on the tendency to help was found. There is no such personality trait - altruism.

One explanation for altruism is given by social exchange theory: human interaction is directed by the “social economy.” We exchange not only material goods and money, but also social goods - love, services, information, status. According to the theory of social Exchange people are driven by the desire to achieve the most positive for myself result at minimum costs, as a last resort, achieve price-reward equilibrium. They weigh costs and benefits. (In this case a prerequisite for prosocial behavior becomes calculation by the helping subject cost-benefit ratio of actions in case of providing or not providing assistance to them and comparing the acquired knowledge with each other).

People entering into exchange relations strive to receive rewards. These rewards can be external and internal. * When a person offers his services to gain recognition or friendship, the benefit is external. We give to receive. (*For example, pop stars - Paul McCartney - receive some benefits by donating money and time to those in need, because their altruistic actions contribute to the popularity of their records).

Benefits of assistance may include internal self-rewards.*If we help a suffering person, we can achieve not only public approval, but also reduce your own suffering(get rid of discomfort) or rise in your own eyes(increase CO).

D. Myers gives Abraham Lincoln's arguments in favor of the fact that selfishness pushes one to perform all good deeds. ( Selfishness- motivation to improve your own well-being.) Lincoln, seeing that piglets had fallen into the pond past which his carriage was passing at that time and were drowning, and the pig was making a terrible noise, rushed into the water and pulled out the piglets. He explained his action by saying that he wouldn’t be able to calm down all day if he drove past and made the poor pig worry about her babies.

Altruistic acts increase our sense of self-worth. Surveys of donors in J. Pigliavin's study showed that donating blood makes them think better about themselves and gives them a feeling of self-satisfaction.

But are such actions truly altruistic?? We call them truly altruistic only because the benefits from them are not obvious. B.F. Skinner (1971), having analyzed altruism, concluded that we respect people for good actions only when we cannot explain these actions. We explain the behavior of these people by their internal dispositions only when we lack external explanations. When external reasons are obvious, we proceed from them, and not from the characteristics of the individual.

Thus, altruistic behavior not necessarily selfless. In many cases it is explicitly or implicitly - rewarded.

Analysis costs and benefits explains why witnesses who observed rowdy teenagers seemed passive. They were by no means apathetic, in fact they were probably in great shock, but they were paralyzed by the fear of possible losses if they intervened.

1.3 Prosocial behavior motivated by empathy. Altruism based on empathy.

In addition to external and internal reinforcement, there is another motivational principle - reinforcement with empathy. Psychologist Daniel Batson (1991, 1995) argues that prosocial behavior is motivated How selfishly and selflessly(altruistic). Thus, when we are upset about something, we strive to alleviate our suffering, either by avoiding unpleasant situations (like the priest and the Levite in the parable) or by providing help (like the Samaritan).

In those cases when we feel affection for someone, we experience empathy (sympathy), says Batson. Thus, loving parents suffer when their children suffer, and rejoice with them. When we experience empathy, we pay attention not so much to our own discomfort, but to the suffering of others. Genuine empathy motivates us to help others in their own interests. This empathy comes naturally. Even one-day-old babies cry harder when they hear another child crying. In maternity hospitals, the cry of one child sometimes causes a whole chorus of crying voices. Perhaps we are born with an innate sense of empathy.

Thus, altruistic motivation refers to empathy, which makes one care about the well-being of another. Empirical evidence confirms that empathy (empathy) and prosocial behavior are directly related to each other.

To separate the selfish desire to reduce one's own distress from altruistic empathy, Batson's research group conducted a study of what causes empathy. *The idea of ​​the experiment was to push the subjects and the victim together, leaving the former with an escape route. If the subject is guided by selfish motives, he will prefer care in order to reduce his own discomfort (distress) (upset by something, we strive to alleviate our suffering by avoiding unpleasant situations). On the contrary, subjects with altruistic motivation will probably not leave, because the desire to alleviate the victim's suffering will not disappear with leaving.

In Batson's experiment, female students observed for Elaine, a confidant of the experimenter, who was allegedly subjected to electric shock. In the second experiment, she pretended to be in great pain, so the experimenter asked if she could continue to participate in the experiment. Having received a negative answer, he invited the observer (the true subject) to continue the experiment, taking on the role of the victim exposed to the current. In one case, subjects were told that a suffering woman shared many of their worldviews (thereby increasing their empathy). In another case, the subjects believed that Elaine adhered to the opposite attitudes (increased egoistic motivation). In addition, the difficulty of care was regulated. In one case, subjects believed that after the second experiment they could leave the observation room and would not have to watch Elaine suffer. In another case, they were told that they had to watch the experiment to the end.

It was hypothetically assumed that subjects under conditions of the ability to easily leave and dissimilarity of attitudes would be reluctant to help, but under other conditions they would demonstrate a high willingness to help. The results confirmed this assumption “one in three”: only 18% of the subjects were ready to help in the ease/dissimilarity conditions; in the other three conditions, the number of helpers turned out to be much higher.

The experiment showed that subjects who admitted that in response to danger felt Firstly personal discomfort, acted strictly in accordance with the situation , whereas subjects, admitted that first of all sympathized with the victim, acted altruistically, out depending on conditions , constructing the situation.

Thus, Batson argues, altruism is motivated by empathy. Sympathetic participation how a personality characteristic can be considered constant altruistic motivation, and the ever-present the predominance of personal discomfort – as a strong egoistic orientation.

If sum up Having said that, everyone will agree that some assistance actions are obviously selfish(to earn approval or avoid punishment) or almost selfish(desire relieve internal distress). Is there a third type of assistance - altruism, just aimed at increasing someone's benefit(when creating wealth for oneself is only a by-product)? Is empathy-driven helping a source of such altruism?? Cialdini (1991) and his colleagues Mark Schaller and Jim Fultz (1988) doubt this. Feeling empathy for the victim simply worsens the mood, they say. In one of their experiments, they convinced people that their sadness would decrease if they tried to induce a different mood, for example, by listening to a tape of a comedy. Under these conditions, people experiencing empathy were not particularly inclined to help. Schaller and Cialdini concluded that if we feel empathy but know that doing something else would make us feel better, we are less likely to provide help. They believe that neither one experiment cannot exclude all possible selfish motives providing assistance.

However, after conducting 25 experiments to study relationship between selfishness and empathy Batson and others concluded that some people really care about the welfare of others, and not about your own.

These conclusions can be confirmed by studies of the motives of prosocial behavior within the framework of the interpersonal approach. Mills and Clark (1982, 1993) contrasted exchange and intimate relationships. Barter relations– this is a relationship between strangers or barely familiar; close - between friends, family members or lovers. At barter relationship person strive for maximum reward, whereas with loved ones - takes into account well-being of another. Therefore, the assumption arises that when barter in relationships a person is guided selfish motives, and when loved ones– sympathy. A person is more inclined to help someone with whom he has a close relationship than someone with whom he enters into an exchange relationship, unless a return favor is expected.

Personal influences.

2.2.1 FEELINGS

We have looked at the impact that external influences have on making decisions about help. We also need to consider internal factors, such as the emotional state or personality traits of the caregiver.

Consciousness of guilt. Research shows that guilt increases the desire to help.

To find out what consequences the consciousness of guilt causes, social psychologists forced people to commit one sin or another: lie, hit, hit a table on which cards lay in alphabetical order, break a car, cheat. Later, participants in the experiments, burdened by guilt, were offered various ways to relieve their souls: confess, ask for forgiveness from the person who had been harmed, or perform a good deed to compensate for the losses. The results are surprisingly similar: people are willing to do anything to make amends and restore self-respect.

Imagine yourself as a participant in one of these experiments, which was conducted among students at the University of Mississippi by David McMillen and James Austin (1971). You and another student (each of you striving to achieve a positive reputation in your course) come to participate in the experiment. Shortly thereafter, another student (the decoy) enters the classroom and states that he took part in a previous experiment and returned because he forgot his book in the classroom. He starts a conversation, during which he notices that the essence of the experiment is to choose the correct one from several answers, which, as a rule, is the answer under point “b”. After this student leaves, the experimenter appears, explains the experiment, and then asks: “Have any of you participated in an experiment like this before, or perhaps heard something about

Will you lie? If we judge by the behavior of those who took part in this experiment before you - and all 100% of the participants cheated a little - then the answer will be in the affirmative. After you have taken part in the experiment (but have not yet learned the results), the experimenter tells you: “You can go, but if you have some free time, I would like to ask you to help me score the test.” Let's say that you lied to the experimenter. Do you think you would be willing to volunteer some time for him? Based on the results of the experiment, the answer will again be positive. On average, those students who did not have to lie were able to devote only two minutes of their time to the experimenter. Those who lied clearly sought to restore self-respect. On average, they assisted the experimenter for a full 63 minutes. The moral significance of this experiment was well expressed by a seven-year-old girl who, while we were conducting our own experiments of this kind, wrote: “Don’t lie, otherwise you will live with a sense of guilt” (and feel the need to mitigate it).

Our desire to do good after doing evil reflects both our desire to reduce our sense of guilt and restore our self-image and our desire to have a positive reputation in society. We are more likely to atone for our guilt through preventive behavior the more others know about our bad actions. But even when we are guilty only to ourselves, we still strive to alleviate the consciousness of guilt.

In general, the consciousness of guilt does a lot of good. By repenting, apologizing, providing help, and trying to avoid repeating the evil, people become more empathetic and try to maintain closer relationships with each other.

Bad mood.

At first glance, the results of the experiments are puzzling. People in a bad mood (which can be achieved by getting them to read or think about something sad) are sometimes more inclined to be altruistic, and sometimes less so. Such an apparent contradiction inspires the researcher to try to find its cause. However, if you look closely, you can see that there is a certain pattern to this disorder. First, studies of the effects of negative mood show that a tendency toward decreased helping tendencies tends to occur among children and toward increased helping tendencies among adults.

Robert Cialdini, Douglas Kenrick and Donald Baumann (1981; 1981) believe that in adults, altruism causes a feeling of self-satisfaction and internal self-reward. Donors feel better knowing they donated blood. Students who helped pick up dropped papers feel better about their help. Thus, when an adult feels guilty, sad, or in another negative mood, doing something helpful (or doing anything that improves the mood) helps neutralize the negative emotions.

This means (and experiments confirm this) that a negative mood will not increase the desire to help if a person has already had an increase in mood (he has found a wallet with money or listened to a humorous recording on a tape recorder. Likewise, if people believe that their bad mood is caused by taking depressive medications, and they are also not inclined to help.

It happens differently with children. For them, altruism does not have such a rewarding meaning. With age, their views change. And although they are capable of empathy, they do not enjoy altruism as much as adults. As Cialdini suggested, this behavior is the result of socialization. We are all born selfish, as researchers note, but altruism increases with age.

But a bad mood does not always lead to good deeds. Depression, for example, leads to preoccupation and self-absorption. Deep sadness (due to the loss of a loved one) also does not contribute to the manifestation of altruism. In short, the principle “bad mood - good deeds” finds its manifestation only in the behavior of those people whose attention is occupied by others. For these people, therefore, altruism is a rewarding factor. As long as sad people are not self-absorbed, they are responsive and helpful.

GOOD MOOD - GOOD ACTIONS. In various psychological literature one can find many examples that indicate that people who are in a good mood are inclined to provide help, and this applies to both children and adults, regardless of what was the cause of the good mood - success in what In fact, good thoughts or just pleasant experiences.

If sad people are sometimes especially willing to help, what motivates happy people to do so? Experiments show that this phenomenon can be explained by the influence of several factors. Providing help reduces the bad and maintains a good mood. A good mood, in turn, promotes pleasant thoughts and a good attitude towards oneself, which predisposes us to good behavior. When people are in a good mood, either as a result of receiving a gift or a sense of impending success, they are more likely to have pleasant thoughts and memories, which increases their desire to help. Positive thinkers tend to become positive doers.

PERSONALITY TRAITS

We have seen that mood and guilt have a dramatic effect on altruism. Do personality traits have a similar effect? Surely people like Mother Teresa must have some special traits. For many years, social psychologists have been unable to find a single personality trait that predicts altruistic behavior or predicts situations that contribute to feelings of guilt or mood. A weak relationship has been found between the desire to help and some personality characteristics, such as the need for social approval. But in general, personality tests fail to identify people who are likely to be helpful. Recent studies of Jewish saviors in Fascist Europe have reached a similar conclusion: although social context certainly influenced willingness to help, no clearly defined set of altruistic personality traits has been identified (Barley, 1995). From most experiments on measuring altruism, it follows that the measurement of attitudes and personality traits, as a rule, does not allow one to predict one or another specific act, which, apparently, comes into sharp contradiction with Mother Teresa’s lifelong altruism. But such measurements make it possible to better predict average human behavior in a variety of situations.

Personality researchers have responded to the challenge, first, by demonstrating the presence of individual differences in the provision of assistance and showed that these differences persist over time and are observed in similar individuals.

v Preliminary evidence suggests that individuals who are highly emotional, empathetic, and self-determining are more capable of empathy and helping. Secondly, personality characteristics influence people's actions in certain situations.

v People with a high degree of self-control, because they try to live up to what others expect from them, especially inclined to help,if they believe it will lead to social reward. The opinions of others are less important for internally driven individuals with a low degree of self-control.

This personality-situation relationship was also evident in 172 helping studies that included approximately 50,000 men and women. After analyzing the results of these studies, Alice Eagly and Maureen Crowley (1986) concluded that in a potentially dangerous situation, when strangers need help (for example, a punctured tire or a fall in the subway), men provide help more often.(Eagly and Crowley also point out that of the 6,767 people who received a medal for heroism in saving a life, 90% were men.) But in safer situations, such as a voluntary desire to assist during an experiment or agreement to spend time with mentally retarded children, women are slightly more likely to provide assistance.

Thus, gender differences interact with the situation (depend on the situation). Additionally, Eagly and Crowley suggest that if helpfulness researchers focused on long-term close relationships rather than short-term encounters with strangers, they would see that women are significantly more likely to providing assistance.

RELIGIOSITY. Currently, some researchers have begun to study cases of systematic assistance, such as the movement of volunteers providing support to people with AIDS. Only in cases where we are talking about conscious participation in the provision of long-term assistance can we say that the presence of religiosity allows us to predict altruism. At Earlham College, Peter Benson and his colleagues (1980) found that religious students volunteered more time to help others study, engage in community service, and speak out for social justice than did religiously indifferent students. Among the 12% of Americans whom George Gallup (1984) called “highly religious,” 46% said they currently work in services to the poor, the infirm, and the elderly, far more than the 22% among people who are “highly religious.” Subsequent research by Gallup (1989) showed that among those who believed that religion “plays no important role” in their lives, 28% volunteered for charitable organizations and social services; among those who believed that religion “plays an important role” in their lives, 50% did. According to another Gallup study, 37% of churchgoers once a year or less and 76% of weekly churchgoers said it was “fair” to think about “our obligation to the poor” (1994).

Moreover, Sam Levenson's humorous words, “When it comes time to give, some people just can't stop,” are least relevant to church and synagogue goers. According to a 1987 Gallup survey, Americans who said they never attended church or synagogue contributed 1.1% of their income as donations (1990). Weekly churchgoers were two and a half times more generous, and thus 24% of the population contributed 48% of all charitable donations. The remaining two-thirds of Americans contributed the remaining half. Gallup studies in 1990 and 1992 confirmed this pattern.

Conclusion. The manifestation of altruism is facilitated by various situational influences. The more number of eyewitnesses emergency situation: 1) it seems that a minority of them notice what happened; 2) the less likely they are to view it as an emergency and 3) topics they are less likely to take responsibility for resolving it.

When are people most likely to help?? 1) When they see that others rushed to help, and 2) when they don't rush. Personal influences, e.g. mood, also matter. Having committed any offense, people more often want to provide help, clearly hoping to thereby alleviate feeling of guilt or to restore your self-image. Saddened people are also inclined to help. However, the principle “bad mood - good deeds” no room for children, which makes it possible to assume that intrinsic reward for providing assistance is a product of later socialization. And finally, there is the amazing phenomenon of “good mood - good actions”: happy people are ready to help.

In contrast to such strong determinants of altruism as situation and mood, personal characteristics are only relatively allow us to predict the provision of assistance. However, recent data indicate that some people are consistently more inclined to provide assistance than others, and that the influence of personality or gender may depend on the situation. Availability religiosity predicts long-term altruism, manifested in voluntary activities and charitable contributions.

FORMATION OF ALTRUISM.

HELP

SOCIALIZATION OF ALTRUISM.

In order to strengthen the provision of assistance, we can influence those factors that interfere with this. Or we can teach altruistic norms and socialize people to see themselves as capable of helping.

One way to increase altruism is to influence the factors that impede it. Knowing that people who are in a hurry and immersed in their thoughts are less likely to help, can't we think of ways to encourage them to slow down and pay attention to what is happening around them? If the presence of other people reduces each person's sense of responsibility, how can we increase it?

REDUCING UNCERTAINTY, INCREASING RESPONSIBILITY

Living for the sake of others, doing good and selfless deeds is called altruism.

Altruism - what is it?

What it is? Its difference from imaginary altruism and its connection with egoism are considered.

A person lives among other people. He interacts with them, just as they interact with him. One form of interaction is purposeful activity. If a person acts solely out of his own interests, then he is called an egoist. If a person helps others, does everything for their sake, giving up his own needs and desires, then he is called an altruist. The philosopher O. Comte contrasted these concepts. However, there is growing evidence that selfishness and altruism are similar traits. Let's look at what altruism is in this article.

Society encourages altruism rather than selfishness. What it is? This is human behavior that is aimed at caring for other people. At the same time, to some extent or completely, the interests and desires of the person who helps others are infringed.

In psychology, there are two types of altruists:

1. “Mutual” are people who sacrifice themselves only for the sake of those who commit similar acts towards them.
2. “Universal” are people who help everyone, based on good intentions.

Altruism comes from the Latin concept “alter”, which has the translation: “others”, “other”. Altruism can be of the following types:

• Parental – the sacrifice of adults towards their own children. They selflessly raise them, educate them, give them all the benefits and are even ready to sacrifice their lives.
• Moral – achieving inner comfort by helping others. For example, volunteering, sympathy.
• Social is sacrifice towards loved ones, relatives, friends, loved ones, etc. This type of altruism helps people establish strong and lasting contacts, sometimes even manipulate each other: “I helped you, now you owe me.”
• Sympathetic – empathy, showing empathy for the experiences of other people. A person feels the emotions that he would experience himself in a similar situation. The desire to help has a targeted and specific result.
• Demonstrative – sacrifice as a result of upbringing. “This is how it should be done!” - the main slogan of those who sacrifice themselves demonstratively.

The most interesting thing is that a person continues to remain full and satisfied, even when he sacrifices his own interests for the benefit of others. This quality is often compared to heroism - when a person sacrifices himself (and even his life) for the good of other people, while being content only with words of gratitude.

Three complementary theories try to explain the nature of altruism:

1. Evolutionary – actions for the sake of preserving the species. It is believed that this is genetic, when a person sacrifices himself for the sake of preserving the genotype, of all humanity.
2. Social norms - when a person proceeds from the rules of society, which state about helping each other. Altruism manifests itself in helping those who are socially equal or inferior to a person: children, the poor, the needy, the sick, etc.
3. Social exchange - when there is a miscalculation of the effort and time spent with the results achieved. Often this approach is based on selfishness, when a person sacrifices himself to obtain some benefit.

Cause of altruism

The theory cannot fully address altruism from a logical point of view. Nevertheless, this manifestation of a person comes from the spiritual qualities that are visible in some people. Some reasons for altruism can be identified:

• Will other people see it? A person is more willing to act altruistically if other people look up to him. Especially if the actions take place surrounded by close people, then the person is ready to sacrifice his interests in order to show himself on the good side (even if in another situation, when no one would look at him, he would not sacrifice himself).
• In what situation will there be punishment? If a person is in a situation where his inaction will be punished, then he will also act based on a sense of self-preservation.
• What do parents do? Let’s not forget that the degree of altruism is transmitted at the level of imitation of parents. If parents sacrifice themselves, then the child copies their actions.
• Is the person interesting to me? An individual often shows sympathy for those who are similar to him or are interested in something. If there are positive feelings between people, then they are ready to sacrifice themselves.
• The strong must help the weak. This can be called public propaganda. Men should help women when it comes to displaying physical strength. Women should help old people.

Much depends on the upbringing and worldview of the person who exhibits altruistic actions. If a person lives in a society where sacrifice is encouraged, then he will be willing to demonstrate altruistic actions, even when he himself does not want to do this. Blame and punishment become very important here. Everyone wants to be accepted in society. If this requires sacrificing oneself, then a person will act accordingly.

Altruism

Altruism is the selfless behavior of an individual who pursues the achievement of another person’s own benefit. The most striking example is help, when a person performs actions that will benefit only the one he helps. In contrast to this concept, they put egoism - a model of behavior where a person achieves exclusively his own goals, putting them above others. However, some psychologists consider egoism and altruism as complementary phenomena: a person sacrifices himself in order to obtain some benefit - gratitude, reciprocal help, a positive attitude, etc.

If we still consider altruism in the meaning of “others,” then this is behavior in the manifestation of such qualities as:

• Self-denial.
• Care.
• Mercy.

Altruism in its pure manifestation is associated with the fact that a person absolutely does not expect any reciprocal actions from those whom he has helped. He doesn’t even expect the word “thank you” in response to his sacrificial actions. This way the altruist feels better, stronger.

Altruistic behavior has the following features:

1. Gratuitousness - a person does not expect gratitude and does not pursue any benefit.
2. Sacrifice - a person spends his resources, even if they cannot be replenished later.
3. Responsibility – a person is ready to be held accountable for actions taken and results achieved.
4. Priority – the interests of others are placed above the desires of one’s own.
5. Freedom of choice - a person acts only according to his own desire.
6. Satisfaction - a person feels complete and happy after the actions he has taken. This is his reward.

A person is able to realize his inner potential when he helps others. Often people grow up who do little for themselves, but are capable of much for the sake of others - this is also a form of altruism.

Another form of altruism is philanthropy - sacrifice towards people who are not acquaintances, friends or relatives.

The negative side of altruism

They say: “Help another person, then he will definitely turn to you again when he has a problem again.” The benefit of the altruist in this case may be establishing contacts with people who are ready to accept his help. The negative side of this phenomenon may be that the altruist will be surrounded only by those people who will use him.

If you show altruistic actions, noticing that people selfishly take advantage of your help, then this problem should be solved. Seek help from a psychologist on the website, because with your altruistic actions in this case you are harming even those you help. You cultivate in people a consumerist approach to your actions.

Don't try to please everyone. Don't adapt to anyone. That’s why you attract “not your” people to yourself, because you yourself are not yourself.

Understand who you are, what you want, what kind of life you want to live regardless of other people's views. Don't live to please others. Understand yourself, become yourself, do what you want, not other people.

Understand yourself and become yourself - then you will decide on your own desires and attract good people! You will look, behave and go to places where you are interested. There you will find both friends and loved ones.

Don't please everyone. This behavior is similar to the behavior of a flighty woman who, out of self-dislike, wants to please everyone without exception, because if someone doesn’t like her, then this will make her feel unhappy. You should live your life and not waste time satisfying the desires of others. If your sacrifice does not bring a feeling of fulfillment, then you should stop your actions. If you like yourself and live to please your desires, then the people around you either respect you or do not communicate with you; but if you live to satisfy the whims of others, then you are perceived as a slave who does not deserve to realize your desires and express your opinion.

The result of a person’s sacrifice can be a negative attitude of people towards him. Taking advantage of someone who is willing to help does not constitute friendship or goodwill.

Bottom line

Altruism is encouraged in society. However, the decision of whether to be an altruist or not must be made individually by each person. Events develop negatively if the individual does not actually perform selfless actions or does not receive satisfaction simply from the fact that he helped. The result of such actions can be the destruction of relationships with those who received help.

When a mother raises her children to help her when they grow up, this is not a manifestation of parental altruism. Here there is a violation of one of the commandments of altruism: selfless behavior. The mother raises her children for her own benefit, which she will demand from them when they finally grow up. The result of such a situation is often the hatred of children towards their mother, who does not do them any good, but acts in order to then demand help from them.

The result of altruism, when a person does not receive satisfaction from his help, is disappointment or resentment. Many people help others expecting that they will do the same in return. What a disappointment it is when people simply say “thank you” and refuse to help those who once helped them.

These examples show non-altruistic behavior. The prognosis for such actions is sad, since friendly relationships between people in such situations are destroyed.

The prognosis for true altruism is obvious: a person develops when he proceeds from a personal desire to help others. The main goal is development, which makes the altruist stronger, more experienced, wiser, which is much more valuable.

Personal altruism acquires meaning only in social activity, since only a broad social context ensures its correct interpretation.

Altruism (lat. alter - Other) - providing assistance that is not consciously associated with one’s own selfish Interests; actions aimed at the benefit of another person; assistance to another, which is carried out without remuneration, without witnesses, at the cost of possible personal losses.

Pure (real, genuine) altruism has no witnesses, is not associated with rewards or gratitude. Great humanistic teachings and classical literature preach it as the highest value of humanity, an example. But sometimes altruistic behavior is manifested only in public, and actions are determined by personal gain.

The true nature of altruism cannot be ascertained without knowing its motives. Social exchange theory, which posits that people's interactions are agreements designed to increase rewards and reduce costs, interprets altruism as interactions directed by the "social economy." The point is that people in the process of interaction exchange not only goods, money, and other benefits, but also love, status, information, etc. At the same time, expenses decrease and rewards increase. However, this does not mean that a person expects a reward - an analysis of costs and rewards (or a decrease in guilt, an increase in respect, a feeling of satisfaction from having helped someone, etc.) and the desire to achieve the most positive result predetermine altruistic actions. People consider motives such as moral obligations, empathy (sympathy), the desire to similarly thank for a service, increased self-esteem, and the desire for recognition to be altruistic. Willingness to help increases due to a good mood (lack of danger) caused by successes, good, joyful memories; a bad mood (the presence of danger), in which a person is focused on himself, suppresses altruism. People are often emotional and capable of making independent life choices. Situations are also possible in which a person automatically or under duress provides altruism. The “fall from sin” also encourages altruism, which gives rise to a feeling of guilt. Barriers to altruistic behavior are lack of time (a person who is in a hurry is least likely to help), stress, danger, material costs, and incompetence.

In close relationships, solidarity, interpersonal harmony, cohesion, and fair distribution of rewards become especially significant. The cornerstone of floor relationships is the distribution of rewards according to each person's contribution to the completed task. In the process of exchange between strangers or relatively familiar people, selfish motives associated with achieving maximum reward dominate. Such a transaction between close people (friends) is completely opposite in its essence, since during its implementation there is no less than one’s own; the interests of the opposing party are taken into account. If a loved one is in a difficult situation, the willingness to help her grows. This type of altruism is based on compassion.

Altruistic actions are associated with social norms that dictate behavior and life obligations that correspond to them. It has been proven that altruism is motivated by the norms of reciprocity, justice, and social responsibility. The norm of reciprocity is a moral code and assumes that people are more likely to help rather than harm those who have helped them. The norm of justice is a criterion for checking a good or its deficiency or absence. We are talking about the fact that a person has a belief in a fair existence, in the fact that everyone gets what they deserve. She especially sympathizes with those whose fate seems to him to be unfairly difficult, which is the motive for altruistic actions towards them. The altruistic act is weakened by irresponsible behavior, the appearance of a victim, an exaggerated understanding of intra-group solidarity, etc. The norm of social responsibility assumes that people should help others without expecting reward or benefit.

In extreme conditions, the willingness to help is higher where there is only one witness to the danger. The process of providing assistance is hampered by the following reasons:

Dilution of responsibility. If one person is a witness to a difficult situation, she feels that she is the one who needs to intervene; if there are many witnesses, the sense of responsibility is distributed among everyone;

Public assessment. Each of the witnesses hesitates because they are trying to figure out what is happening, how events will unfold further, so they all give each other examples of passive behavior. Consequently, the process of social comparison causes a false interpretation of the situation, according to which a problematic event is interpreted as completely safe;

Fear of evaluation. The presence of other people causes a feeling of uncertainty, because they will witness what will happen. If the witness is confident in his abilities and competence, then the presence of others can stimulate his desire to help.

Evolutionary psychology distinguishes two types of altruism - protection of the species, devotion to it and mutual benefit. Its representatives believe that people need to be taught altruism, since the genes of selfish individuals are more likely to survive than the genes of those who sacrifice themselves.

It is believed that altruism can be transmitted to children as part of the family script, a habitual pattern of behavior through imitation and through television prosocial models of influence. More effective is teaching altruism without the use of external stimulation: encouragement and punishment, because such actions are not subject to material measurements, they are carried out at the behest of the heart, conscience, and honor. Knowledge of the conditions that promote altruistic behavior, the reasons that inhibit the manifestations of altruism, helps people become more attentive to their environment.

It is known that not all people are inclined to help. For example, T.V. Vogel

(2011) found that 63.9% of residents of the city of Yoshkar-Ola are not active in socially assisting activities. This may depend both on situational factors and on the personal characteristics of people.

2.1. External factors, or When and who gets help most often

The decision to provide assistance depends on many external circumstances.

Formulating a request. In one experiment, a research assistant approached students who were waiting in line to use the library photocopier and asked if they would let her go ahead. At first she simply asked for a favor: “Can I use the photocopier?” The majority, 60%, of students agreed to skip the line. It follows that the basic strategy for obtaining consent, which is to simply ask for a favor, worked. To another group of students, a woman asked the same courtesy, slightly changing the wording of the request: “Can I use the photocopier because I need to make several copies?” The percentage agreeing jumped sharply, reaching 93%. Obviously, the word “because” had a magical effect. This is a trap word. It implies that the request has some reason, and, as it were, “confirms” that an explanation of this reason will now follow, so an automatic reaction is activated (Zimbardo F., Leippe M., 2000).

When a person asks someone for a favor and he has an explanation for this request, it is advisable to first give an explanation and then formulate the request itself. If this order is violated, the result is not very logical. The person has already agreed to help, but the applicant continues to list the reasons why he needs help, as if he does not believe that they will help him, and thereby insults the interlocutor. Or vice versa - the person has already refused, and the applicant undertakes to convince him to agree. The explanation should be brief and clear, and if asked to proceed with the request, it should be done immediately, leaving all the prepared reasons.

When making a request, you need to express goodwill and sincerity not only in words, but also in your eyes, posture and posture. This will help not only to win over the person, but also to maintain dignity.

A request has a greater impact on a person if it is formulated in clear and polite terms and accompanied by respect for his right to refuse in cases where the request creates some kind of inconvenience. In a conversation with the petitioner, it is advisable to specifically note that if for some reason a person cannot help, then they will not hold grudges against him and this will not affect the relationship with him.

A study by J. Darley and B. Latane (Darley, Latane, 1968) examined conditions under which a request was more likely to prompt people on the street to provide help. It was revealed that it matters what kind of request was made to passers-by. Informational assistance (about time, how to get somewhere, etc.) was provided more often than material assistance. Moreover, the manner of address had a great influence. Money was given more often if they first asked the time or identified themselves; in cases where they talked about losing a wallet or needing to make a phone call, two-thirds of passers-by responded to the request. At the same time, female petitioners had greater success, especially among men. Money was given more often in cases where the person asking was with someone.

What not to do when asking for help? Make a request without any explanation. Any person will conclude that he is seen as just a machine for running errands. But at the same time, you should not embellish the complexity of your problem so that the person to whom the request is made begins to feel remorse because everything is good in his life. It should be remembered that any deception will be revealed sooner or later, and such a strategy will give only one result - over time there will be much less people willing to help you.

You shouldn’t deliberately push for pity. This may lead the person to suspect an attempt to manipulate him.

The meaning of reflection and personification. The connection that arises between people who see each other's facial expressions is of great importance. Darley, Teger, and Lewis (1973) showed that couples who sit with their backs turned to each other rarely come to the rescue of a person in trouble. Partners, who can see each other’s faces while working, come to the rescue almost as often as individuals. The authors of this study explain this by the fact that a person sitting opposite a partner can pay attention to his facial expression, and therefore understand that what happened also attracted his attention. As a result, both will realize that an incident occurred and will feel responsible for taking appropriate action.

Hitchhikers receive twice as many offers of help if they make eye contact with drivers (Snyder et al., 1974).

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Henry and Linda Solomon studied ways to reduce anonymity (Solomon and Solomon, 1978; Solomon et al., 1981). They found that bystanders who introduced themselves to each other and provided information about themselves, such as age, were more likely to offer help to a sick person than people who did not know each other. The same can be said about another situation: if, while in a supermarket, a female experimenter, having caught the eye of another shopper, smiled back at her before stepping onto the escalator, it is this woman who is more likely to help her when a little later she comes to her senses: “ Crap! I forgot my glasses! Can anyone tell me which floor sells umbrellas?” Even the simplest exchange of remarks with someone (“Excuse me, are you by any chance Susie Spear’s sister?” - “No, you’re mistaken”) has a very strong influence on the person’s subsequent willingness to help.

Willingness to provide assistance also increases when a person has a real chance of a subsequent meeting with both the victim and other eyewitnesses. Jody Gottlieb and Charles Carver convinced their subjects, students at the University of Miami, that they would discuss their student problems with one of their classmates using an intralaboratory intercom (Gottlieb and Carver, 1980). (In fact, the role of the second participant in the discussion was “performed” by a tape recording.) When, during the course of the discussion, he began to choke and call for help, those subjects who thought that they would soon have a personal meeting helped him more quickly. In short, anything that personally personalizes the bystander—a personal request, eye contact, introducing himself to others, or the expectation of further contact with the victim or other bystanders—makes him more likely to help.<…>

“Depersonalized” people are less responsible. Therefore, everything that promotes self-awareness—name badges, awareness of being watched and valued, focus and balance—should also favor altruism. Experimental data obtained by Shelley Duval, Virginia Duval, and Robert Neely support this conclusion (Duval, Duval, Neely, 1979). They showed USC students images of themselves on television or asked them to fill out biographical questionnaires, then asked them to donate either money or their time to those in need. Those who were first given the opportunity to become self-aware showed greater generosity. Pedestrians behaved similarly: those who had been photographed shortly before came to the aid of a person who had scattered mail envelopes more quickly (Hoover et al., 1983).

Myers D., 2004

Having a role model. Providing assistance may depend on whether it is an act worthy of emulation. Thus, one study (Horstein et al., 1968) showed that if a passerby finds a wallet with a letter enclosed in it from a person who previously found this wallet and reports that he is sending it to the owner against the advice of a friend (or despite a negative experience , which he acquired after losing his own wallet), then the share of people who found the wallet second and returned their find to the owner turns out to be three times greater than in the case when the first person to find the wallet writes that he is returning it on the advice of his friend and in accordance with with your own experience.

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The role of the “model” (role model)

In their experiments, Wagner and Wheeler (1969) provided the subject with the opportunity to perform a charitable act. Moreover, those subjects who had previously observed another person’s generosity gave significantly more money than those who had observed the stingy “model.” In the work of Harris et al. (Harris et al., 1973), experiments were carried out in a large store. An experimenter walked towards a lonely buyer and “accidentally” dropped the bags he was carrying in his hands. During this time, the experimenter's assistant, who served as a “model,” either helped the experimenter collect the packages or walked by indifferently. It turned out that observing altruistic behavior did not affect the behavior of passersby. In another study (Harris & Samerott, 1975), the experimenter asked passersby to participate in filling out a questionnaire. At the same time, some passers-by observed an altruistic “model” of agreement to the experimenter’s proposal. As in the previous experiment, their altruism did not differ significantly from the altruism of people who did not observe the “model.” These data cast doubt on the possibility of changing such a fundamental personality quality as altruism through situational observation of the behavior of another person.

Subbotsky E.V., 1977

Drivers are more likely to help a female driver who has a flat tire if they saw someone helping the woman change a tire a quarter of a mile earlier (Bryan and Test, 1967). According to the same authors, during the Christmas shopping period, people were more willing to donate money to the Salvation Army if they had seen someone else do it before. The British were more likely to agree to become donors if they were approached with this request after their assistant experimenter gave his consent to donate blood in front of them (Rushton, Campbell, 1977).

Assessment of what is happening. People's reactions to street crime depend on how they interpret the situations they witness. Having staged a fight between a man and a woman, L. Shotland and M. Straw (Shotland, Straw, 1976) found that the reaction of passersby to it depended on the fact that the woman was screaming. If she screamed: “Leave me alone. I don’t know you!”, passers-by intervened in what was happening in 65% of cases, but if she shouted: “Leave me alone! And why did I just marry you!” - only in 19% of cases. Obviously, victims of “family” violence do not evoke such sympathy and desire to help as victims of violence from strangers.

Presence of other people. The decision to provide help may depend on the availability of other people who can provide help. The desire to help a stranger is enhanced by the fact of meeting other eyewitnesses of the event. This was shown by experiments conducted in two cities in Israel and at the University of Illinois (Chicago) (Rutkowski et al., 1983; Yinon et al., 1982).

However, the presence of strangers can lead to a delay in providing assistance, which is associated with the “multiple unawareness” effect and the “diffusion of responsibility” effect.

The “multiple unawareness” effect characterizes the stage of assessing the situation (whether help is needed or not). Being not alone, a person looks at the reactions of others. At the same time, each person restrains his reaction so that its excessive force or haste does not put him in an awkward position. All this leads to general confusion and to the assessment of the situation requiring help as less critical (Bickman, 1972).

The “diffusion of responsibility” effect is associated with the expectation that others present during a disaster will provide help. In essence, each person shifts responsibility and the formation of the intention to help onto the shoulders of the other. Thus, B. Latane and D. Rodin (Latane, Rodin, 1969) showed in an experiment that, hearing someone falling from the stairs in the next room and screaming in pain, 70% of the subjects rushed to help if they were in in their room alone or with a friend, and only 7% of those who were in a room alone with a stranger.

True, there are exceptions. In the event of a sudden fall of a passenger on a subway train, the provision of assistance to him did not depend on the number of passengers, and its latency time even decreased with an increase in the number of passengers (Piliavin et al, 1969, 1975). In organized groups, “diffusion of responsibility” was also not observed. But it is also influenced by the appearance of the person who needs help: intoxication, blood oozing from the mouth, and an unkempt appearance increased the “diffusion of responsibility.” This is explained by the fact that the recipients of assistance assessed this situation as requiring high costs.

Misavage and Richardson (1974) believe that “diffusion of responsibility” occurs only in an unorganized group; if the group is united, the opposite occurs - “cumulation of responsibility.” They confirmed this experimentally: a group united by a common task was more likely to come to the rescue in an emergency situation than a disunited group.

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Irving Piliavin and his colleagues (Piliavin et al., 1969) set up a “laboratory on wheels” and staged an emergency situation in it. The participants in their experiment were 4,450 unsuspecting New York subway passengers. All 103 episodes were played out according to the same scenario: the experimenter's assistant entered the carriage at a stop and stopped right at the door, holding the handrail. No sooner had the train left the platform than it began to sway and then completely fall. If he had a cane in his hands, one or two people would immediately rush to help. Even when he had a bottle in his hands, and he smelled of alcohol, then they often quickly came to his aid, especially if several men were nearby.

Myers D., 2004

Who gets help more often? According to American scientists, first of all, people save children, members of their own families and neighbors, and secondly, old people, friends or strangers (Burnstein et al., 1994; Form, Nosow, 1958).

The results of a study by Yu. V. Kovaleva, conducted in our country and in our time, revealed slightly different priorities: 45.5% of respondents provided assistance primarily to an elderly person. Another 20% named situations of helping a loved one (relative, friend). Finally, 3.6% named the situation of providing assistance to a woman with a child and 1.8% - a pregnant woman. The remaining 29.1% of the total number of participants in the study who described cases of assistance did not focus on the recipient of assistance as a person in dire need of help or having a related (friendly) relationship with them.

In the case of a distress caused by an external cause, help is provided more often and in greater volume than when there is an internal cause, for example, inattention, poor skill, etc. (Schoppler, Metthews, 1965). However, if internal causes are stable in their manifestation and are not subject to the influence of the subject (such as physical and mental defects), then this pattern may not appear. Thus, if a disabled or blind person falls during a sharp braking of a vehicle, then the passengers standing next to him rush to his aid rather than to a drunken person (Piliavin et al., 1969).

People are more likely to help those they like and whose approval they strive to earn (Krebs, 1970; Unger, 1979).

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The results of several experiments indicate that disabled women whose tires blow out on the road receive more help than disabled men in the same situation (Penner et al., 1973; Pomazal and Clore, 1973; West et al., 1975 ). The same can be said for women hitchhiking alone: ​​their requests for a ride are responded to more readily than those of men or couples (Pomazal & Clore, 1973; Snyder et al., 1974). Of course, the reason for the gallant attitude of men towards a single woman may be something other than altruism. Therefore, it is not surprising that they are more likely to help attractive women than plain ones (Mims et al., 1975; Stroufe et al., 1977; West, Brown, 1975).

Myers D., 2004

Ethnic differences. Sisson's (1981) work examined the influence of a person's ethnicity on helping behavior. Four white Englishmen (two men and two women) and four citizens of this country - immigrants from the West Indies (also two men and two women) - asked white Englishmen to change a coin for a pay phone. The results showed that both women and men exhibited racial discrimination, but only towards members of the same sex and not the opposite. In other words, white Englishmen are significantly more likely to help (change coins) to white fellow citizens compared to immigrants from the West Indies living in the country. However, with regard to the latter, white men are significantly more likely to help Indian women, and white women are significantly more likely to help Indian men.

In experiments conducted by S. Gaertner and J. Dovidio (1977, 1986), white female students were less likely to help a black woman in trouble than a white woman in a similar situation if they had the opportunity to share responsibility with other bystanders (“I didn’t help the black woman because others could have done it too”). In the absence of other witnesses, the students were equally likely to help regardless of whether the person in need was a white woman or a black woman.

Obviously, if the norms of acceptable behavior are clearly defined, whites will not discriminate, but if the norms are unclear or contradictory, the provision of assistance along racial lines may prevail.

However, the results of studies that have examined this issue are mixed. Some studies have identified a bias in favor of one's own race (Benson et al., 1976; Clark, 1974; Franklin, 1974; Gaertner, 1973; Gaertner and Bickman, 1971; Sisson, 1981). Nothing similar was found in others (Gaertner, 1975; Lerner and Frank, 1974; Wilson and Donnerstein, 1979; Wispe and Freshley, 1971). However, studies that examined face-to-face situations did find a bias in favor of members of a race other than one's own (Dutton, 1971, 1973; Dutton and Lake, 1973; Katz et al., 1975).

It has been revealed that greater altruism is manifested in relation to a person who is dependent on the person providing help (Berkowitz, Daniels, 1964), pleasant (Daniels, Berkowitz, 1963; Epstein, Horstein, 1969), and has an attractive appearance (Mims et al., 1975) , is known to the helper (Macanlay, 1975), shares the helper's political views (Karabenick et al., 1973), belongs to the opposite sex (Bickman, 1974), and belongs to the same ethnic group as the helper (Harris & Baudin, 1973). It is also important whether the person asking is trustworthy, whether he really needs help, or whether he is manipulating people, “putting pressure” on their feeling of pity.

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At one time I was a regular on the forum of a journalists’ website. Periodically, advertisements appeared on the forum asking for help to certain citizens in need. The advertisements were always placed by the same people - a woman working as a proofreader in a newspaper in a provincial town, and a perpetually unemployed journalist from Kyiv. They found sob stories and posted them, notifying all site visitors that they had already “donated some money.” An example, so to speak, was shown... “We urgently need money for an operation!”, “We urgently need money for treatment!”, “We urgently need money for a transplant!!!” One story shocked me, and I decided to transfer a certain amount to the account of the parents of a boy with leukemia. But first, I asked a woman proofreader from a provincial town who posted an ad asking for help for the phone number of the boy’s parents.

- Why do you need it?

“I want to meet them,” I explained.

- For what?

- Because I want to make sure. You see, I earn money...

And so it began!

- Do you feel sorry for a couple of rubles? Are you sorry for this?!! My own children are almost starving, but I’m always ready to help!!! It’s a sin not to help in such a matter!!! – the female proofreader was burning with righteous anger. – Sometimes I have nothing to pay for the apartment, but this is sacred!!! Yes, I will borrow, but I will help!!!

- I'm not sorry! – the unemployed journalist echoed her.

I was covered with contempt, and the most offensive epithets were uttered by these two people - the eternal unemployed and the proofreader, eking out a miserable existence on a pittance salary. I, overcome by doubts and reluctance to give the money I earned with my labor to God knows who (greed), found out some interesting facts. Firstly, a boy with that name was not listed in any of the hospitals in the city mentioned in the appeal. Secondly, the account indicated in the appeal appeared a year ago in the story of a girl who was run over by a tram.

Based on Internet materials (shkolazhizni.ru)

Help is provided more willingly if the need for help is caused by uncontrollable circumstances. If the need arose due to a choice that was made by the person himself, then people do not feel any obligations to the person in need of help and say that he is to blame for everything (Barnes, Ickes, Kidd, 1979; Weiner, 1980).

People are more likely to help those who are similar to them. Moreover, we are talking about both external and internal similarity. Experimental assistants, dressed in either traditional or provocative clothing, approached either “normal” or “hippie” students for coins for a pay phone (Emswiller, 1971). Less than half of them helped out someone who was dressed differently from them, and two-thirds helped out someone who was dressed like them. Shoppers in shops in Scotland were less willing to comply with requests to change money when presented by a person wearing a T-shirt with an explicitly homosexual slogan (Gray et al., 1991).

2.2. Internal factors, or Who provides help more often

When making a decision to provide a service or assistance, a person takes into account factors such as time spent, efforts made, monetary expenses, delay of his plans, unsatisfaction of his needs, danger to his health and life. In this case, the decisive factor is whether a person has learned norms of social responsibility(standards of moral behavior in relation to other people), or, as domestic psychologists write, the presence of a “sense of duty.” A person with high morality and a high “sense of duty,” despite the expenditure of time, money and effort, will help a person in trouble. At the same time, he will take responsibility for the results of assistance.

Ickes and co-authors (Ickes, Kidd, 1976; Ickes, Kidd, Berkowitz, 1976) showed that the “aura of success” in an activity or resources obtained by the person himself (due to his abilities, and not due to external reasons) increase readiness person to provide financial assistance. However, the influence of the “aura of success” turns out to be short-lived (Isen, Clark, Schwartz, 1976). It was also found that the state of elation instilled in the subjects in the experiment increased their readiness to provide help (Aderman, 1972; Cunningham et al., 1980).

Influence of living environment. Compared with residents of small cities or rural areas, residents of metropolitan areas are less likely to provide services (Hedge and Yousif, 1992; Kort and Kerr, 1975; Steblay, 1987).

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Residents of megacities rarely appear alone in public places, which explains their less responsiveness (compared to the responsiveness of residents of small cities). “Compassion fatigue” and “sensory overload” that arise from communicating with a large number of people in need of help lead to the fact that in all countries of the world, residents of large cities are in no hurry to provide it (Yousif, Korte, 1995). Fatigue and overload explain the results of experiments conducted by Robert Levine and his colleagues in 36 cities involving several thousand people (Levine et al., 1995). When approaching different people, the experimenters either “accidentally” dropped a pen, or asked to change a banknote, or portrayed a blind man who needed to be taken across the road, etc. The larger the city and the higher the population density in it, the less inclined they were to help him. residents.

Myers D., 2004

(2012) indirectly confirms this trend: residents in a region with unfavorable living conditions have a strong desire for mutual support and an orientation towards helping others, with a decrease in the emphasis on their own interests.

The influence of age. Researchers have not reached a clear conclusion regarding the influence of age on helping behavior. Murphy (1943) found that the need to selflessly help another child manifests itself in children as young as three years old. According to Harris (1967), verbal altruism (judgments based on altruistic norms) increases with age. Studying the behavior of children aged 5 to 14 years, Green and Shneider (1974) noted an increase with age in such qualities as the desire to selflessly sacrifice their time to help children in need and the desire to help the experimenter. However, Zinser et al. (1975) did not find a correlation between age and children's generosity. Krebs (1970), when reviewing eleven studies, found a correlation of altruism with the age of children in only seven.

T.V. Vogel (2011) noted an increase in the frequency of socially-helping activities with increasing age of adults. Thus, in the age group of 20–29 years old, non-helpful behavior is more often observed, and in the group of 50–59 years old, about half of the respondents practice social assistance. At the same time, older people, as noted by A. V. Alekseeva (2012), are characterized by a dominant desire to take care of the well-being of children and grandchildren.

Gender. E. Eagly and M. Crowley (1986) showed in numerous experiments that men are more likely to help women in trouble. Women are equally responsive to both men and women.

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The interaction of personality and situation was the subject of 172 studies that compared 50,000 male and female subjects in terms of willingness to help. After analyzing the results, Alice Eagly and Maureen Crowley came to the following conclusion: men, when they find themselves in a potentially dangerous situation where a stranger needs help (for example, a punctured tire or a fall in a subway car), are more likely to help (Eagly, Crowley, 1986). But in situations in which it is not a matter of life and death (for example, you need to take part in an experiment or spend time with mentally retarded children), women are somewhat more responsive. Consequently, gender differences manifest themselves differently in different situations. Eagly and Crowley also suggested that if researchers studied helping behavior in long-term, close relationships rather than in occasional interactions with strangers, they would likely find that women are significantly more altruistic than men. Darren George and his colleagues agree, finding that women respond more empathetically to friends' requests and spend more time providing help (George et al., 1998).

Myers D., 2004

A cross-cultural study by Johnson et al. (1989) found that women were more altruistic than men.

The same data were obtained by domestic researchers. The work of S.K. Nartova-Bochaver (1992) revealed that female adolescents are more responsive to the needs of other people than male adolescents (Fig. 2.1).

Rice. 2.1. The ratio of “responsive” (1), “indifferent” (2) and “evasive” (3) among boys (A) and girls (B) in % to the total number of respondents of each gender

T.V. Fogel, based on a survey of residents of the city of Yoshkar-Ola, stated that women are more active in socially-helping behavior and less active in men: 47% of women practice socially-helping behavior and this happens in 65% of possible cases. The age of greatest socially-helping activity for women is 50–59 years, for men – 40–49 years. The age of greatest inactivity in this regard for women is 20–29 years and 30–39 years, for men – 20–29 years and 40–49 years.

Women tend to exhibit more long-term prosocial behavior (e.g., caring for loved ones). According to L. E. Kireeva (2012), 40% of men and 65% of women noted the desire for mutual assistance between spouses in difficult times. For men, short-term helping actions bordering on heroism (for example, saving people in a fire) are more likely.

Personal characteristics. The decision to provide assistance is influenced by a person’s personal qualities. Personality researchers have identified, first, that individual differences in helping behavior persist over time (Hampson, 1984; Rushton et al., 1981); secondly, they identified combinations of personality traits that make people predisposed to altruism - these are emotional, compassionate and active people (Bierhoff et al., 1991; Romer et al., 1986; Wilson, Petruska, 1984); thirdly, they found that personality traits influence how specific people react to specific situations (Carlo et al., 1991; Romer et al., 1986; Wilson, Petruska, 1984): individuals with a high level of self-control, sensitive to those around them are especially inclined to provide help if they believe that it will be socially rewarded (White, Gerstein, 1987).

Prevents an adequate assessment of a situation requiring help if a person has egocentrism. Personal egocentrism is a deformation of a person’s scale of values, when he sees and evaluates the world only through the prism of his desires and individualistic, sometimes openly mercantile interests, and either considers the people around him as passive objects of his influence, or presents them as a convenient means for achieving his goals. goals.

In psychology, the following types of egocentrism are distinguished: cognitive, characterizing mainly the processes of perception and thinking; moral egocentrism, manifested in a lack of understanding of the moral foundations of other people’s behavior; communicative egocentrism, which complicates communication (primarily verbal) due to neglect of differences in the semantic content of concepts, etc. In general, egocentrism is in one way or another connected with the cognitive sphere.

When faced with information that contradicts ideas and past experience, the egocentric simply cannot perceive it due to a lack of understanding that there may be other points of view besides his own, and due to the belief that the psychological organization of other people is identical to his own.

...

One of the hypotheses about the nature of altruism follows from psychoanalytic concepts. From this point of view, altruism is seen as the desire, through a selfless act, to reduce the “feeling of guilt” inherent in a person before others<…>An interesting study by Harris et al. (1975) was conducted at the entrance to a Catholic church; It turned out that believers going to confession give a much larger amount to a charitable fund than believers leaving after confession. The authors explain this phenomenon by a decrease in feelings of guilt after confession.

Subbotsky E.V., 1977

It is important not to confuse egocentrism with selfishness. An egoist is able to clearly understand other people's positions, opinions and interests, but deliberately ignores them for his own benefit. In other words, he may not be self-centered. An egocentric person is simply unable to perceive them, since he views the whole world through a one-dimensional scale of his assessments. For example, when I told the Italian millionaire and psychologist A. Menighetti in a private conversation that Russian old people live poorly and need help, he said that it was their own fault - they did not want to work.

S. Schwartz and G. Clausen (Schwartz, Clausen, 1970) showed that readiness to provide help is more pronounced in people with internal locus of control, perceiving themselves as active subjects of action. A similar pattern was revealed by L.L. Abelite et al. (2011): the “altruistic orientation” attitude is positively related to the internal locus of control (Spearman correlation coefficient 0.323, p< 0,05), а установка «ориентации на эгоизм» – отрицательно (коэффициент корреляции Спирмена -0,482, p < 001).

Thus, individuals with an internal locus of control are characterized by strongly expressed social attitudes towards altruism and weakly expressed social attitudes towards egoism. Subjects with an external locus of control are characterized by weakly expressed social attitudes towards altruism and strongly expressed social attitudes towards egoism.

E. Staub (1974) notes the positive role of the level of moral development and the negative role of Machiavellianism (neglect of moral principles in order to achieve a goal) for willingness to help.

Having a feeling of guilt. After committing an unseemly act and the appearance of a feeling of guilt, the need to do good increases. This is due to the need to restore damaged self-esteem and a positive public image. If others are aware of a person’s “sins,” then he will be more inclined to “atone for them” by doing good deeds (Carlsmith, Gross, 1969). D. Regan et al. (1972) demonstrated this in an experiment conducted in one of the shopping centers in New York. They convinced some customers that they had broken the camera. A few minutes later, a man appeared (this was also the experimenter’s assistant), in his hands he was holding a shopping bag, from which something sticky was dripping. He was warned about dripping from his bag by 15% of those who were not accused of breaking the camera, and 60% of those who were accused of it. Obviously, the latter had no reason to restore their reputation in the eyes of this man. Therefore, the explanation seems plausible that by helping him, they made amends for their own guilt and regained their self-respect. However, other ways of reducing guilt, such as confession, may reduce the need to perform good deeds (Carlsmith et al., 1968).

Similar experiments were carried out by Katzev and colleagues (Katzev et al., 1978). When members of a group of visitors to an art museum touched the exhibits with their hands, and at the zoo tried to feed the bears, the experimenters reprimanded some of them. In both cases, 58% of those who were reprimanded soon rushed to help another experimenter who had “accidentally” dropped something. Of those who did not receive comments, only about 30% of the subjects expressed a willingness to help.

Religiosity. In nonlife-or-death situations, true believers are only slightly more responsive (Trimble, 1993). Religiosity more reliably predicts human behavior when it comes to providing long-term assistance, for example, volunteers with AIDS patients (Amato, 1990; Clary and Snyder, 1991, 1993; Omoto et al., 1993).

The results of a Gallup poll conducted in the late 1980s show: among those who believe that “religion does not play an important role in their lives” and among those who consider religion “very important” to them , social volunteers 28 and 59%, respectively (Colasanto, 1989). A more recent survey found that 37% of those who attend church once a year or less and 76% of those who attend weekly think frequently about their “responsibility to the poor” (Wuthnow, 1994).

Americans who never attend temples give 1.1% of their income to charity (Hodgkinson et al., 1990; Hodgkinson and Weitzman, 1990, 1992). Those who attend temples donate 2.5 times more weekly. However, other data are available (see box).

...

Atheists, agnostics and non-devout people are more likely to be motivated by compassion when helping strangers than believers, even though the call to love your neighbor is fundamental to Christianity and is regularly heard from church pulpits and pulpits. These are the results of a sociological study by American scientists.

In three experiments conducted by sociologists from the University of California at Berkeley, it was found that the less religious a person is, the more his generosity and selfless actions towards others are dictated by feelings of compassion. And vice versa: the more pious he is, the less they are dictated by sympathy.

The results of the experiments do not mean that religious people are less generous and merciful or less compassionate, but they do refute the commonly held belief that generosity and mercy are determined by feelings of compassion and pity, as well as piety, the authors note. The experiment showed that the connection between compassion and generosity is stronger among those who consider themselves non-religious or not very religious people.

“For those less religious, the strength of an emotional connection with another person is critical in deciding whether to help that person or not.

In turn, more religious people base their generosity less on emotions and more on factors such as religious doctrine, identifying themselves as a representative of the church community and considerations of reputation,” sociologist Rob Wheeler, one of the authors of the article, comments on the results of the study. The authors of the paper examined the relationship between religiosity, compassion and generosity, but the results of the experiments do not yet explain why pious people are less motivated to help others.

compassion. Sociologists hypothesize that for deeply religious people, the behavioral code associated with an internalized moral obligation (“we must help our neighbors”) plays a greater role than emotions. "We hypothesize that religion modifies the driver of generous behavior," said lead author Laura Saslow.

The first part of the article is devoted to the analysis of a sociological survey in which 1,300 adult Americans took part, from which a group of people who were inclined to show mercy towards those who found themselves in a less advantageous position than those around them was first identified. Further study of this group showed that the majority of those who are ready to provide shelter to the homeless and give them money precisely out of a sense of compassion are people of little religion or non-religion.

“This shows that although compassion is associated with prosocial behavior in both less religious and more religious individuals, this association is strongest for those who are less religious,” the authors write. The second experiment involved a group of 101 adults. Each of them was shown separately two videos - one control, depicting neutral scenes, and one heartbreaking, depicting suffering beggar children. After each viewing, participants received $10 from the organizers with an offer to donate any part of this amount to a stranger in need.

As a result, less religious participants in the experiment turned out to be more generous. “The compassionate video did boost their altruism but had no significant effect on the generosity of more religious members of the group,” Wheeler said. Finally, in the third experiment, 200 students who first answered the survey question: “How compassionate are you?” played the classic “share with your neighbor” game. First, all participants were given money, which they could share with a stranger if they wished. Next, they were told that another player had shared part of the money with them and they, in turn, could donate part of the amount received to another stranger. At the end of the game, participants answered the survey question: “How religious are you?”

As it turned out, those who were more compassionate but less religious were also more generous. “As we can see, despite the fact that in the United States less pious people inspire less trust, they are more likely to help their fellow citizens out of compassion than pious people,” Rob Wheeler summarizes.

Since more devout people are guided in their altruism primarily by "doctrine" rather than by emotion, it is understandable why the orthodox sometimes demonstrate amazing cruelty and inhumanity in situations where they believe that their religion - the behavioral code with which they identify themselves - is something then threatens. If the principle of the rule turns out to be stronger than a simple human feeling, the same compassion, then changing one rule (say, “love your neighbor”) to the diametrically opposite one (say, “I came not with peace, but with a sword”) for a religious orthodox is a routine procedure: religion would not be a religion if it did not immediately have the right answers to all questions.

Dmitry Malyanov. Is an atheist more humane than a believer? (Based on Internet materials)

Religious college students devote more time to helping the underperforming and sick than non-religious college students (46% and 22%, respectively) (Benson et al., 1980; Hansen et al., 1995), (Figure 2.2).

Rice. 2.2. Religiosity and long-term altruism (Myers D., 2004)

Interpersonal relationships. As shown in the study by V. S. Mustafina (1998), the fulfillment of the moral norm of mutual assistance is already observed among preschoolers, but it strongly depends on the emotional attitude towards a peer.

V.V. Galanina (2001, 2003) revealed that junior schoolchildren demonstrate knowledge and acceptance of the moral norm of mutual assistance as socially significant and obligatory and are focused on its implementation in the situation of expected behavior. However, the nature of the emotional attitude towards a peer (sympathy or antipathy) influences the characteristics of fulfilling the norm of mutual assistance at primary school age. In a situation of expected behavior, children express their readiness to help a peer, regardless of their emotional attitude towards him. In a situation of real interaction, children help a sympathetic peer much more often than an antipathetic or neutral one. At the same time, the moral behavior of children in a real situation is characterized by instability and dependence on external circumstances.

Younger schoolchildren justify helping a sympathetic peer in a situation of expected behavior by the desire to maintain friendly relations, the need to fulfill friendly obligations, and the avoidance of social disapproval. They are driven by sympathy and a friendly attitude towards their peers. Younger schoolchildren justify helping an antipathetic peer with a sense of social responsibility and justice.

One study (Midlarsky, 1968) found that the desire to show altruism increases if a person receives recognition of his “high competence” in some activity.

According to Horowitz (1968), people are more willing to help other people when they do it voluntarily rather than out of obligation.

...

People who are in a depressed mood (they have previously read or thought about something sad) sometimes show more altruism than usual, and sometimes less. However, upon closer examination, we notice that a certain pattern is visible in these contradictory data. First, studies reporting negative effects of negative mood on altruism were conducted primarily with children (Isen et al., 1973; Kenrick et al., 1979; Moore et al., 1973); they say the opposite - with the participation of adults (Aderman, Berkowitz, 1970; Apsler, 1975; Cialdini et al., 1973; Cialdini, Kenrick, 1976). Robert Cialdini, Douglas Kenrick and Donald Baumann believe that adults find satisfaction in the altruistic act itself, that is, it gives them an internal reward in the form of pleasure that they receive from it. People who have helped others begin to think better about themselves. This applies equally to the donor who gave his blood, and to the student who helped a stranger collect dropped papers (Williamson and Clark, 1989). Therefore, if an adult feels guilty, sad, or depressed for some other reason, any act of kindness (or any other positive experience that can improve his mood) helps him neutralize the negative feelings.

Why doesn’t this “mechanism” work in children? According to Cialdini, Kenrick, and Baumann, this is because children, unlike adults, do not consider altruism itself to be rewarding. They learn from children's literature that selfish people are always happier than those who help others, but as children grow older, their views change (Perry et al., 1986). Although young children tend to be empathic, helping others does not bring them much pleasure; such behavior is rather a consequence of socialization.

To test their hypothesis, Cialdini and his colleagues asked junior, senior, and middle school students to recall a sad or neutral event. Children then had the opportunity to personally give prize coupons to other children (Cialdini & Kenrick, 1976). If children were in a sad mood, the youngest donated the least amount of coupons, older children slightly more, and teenagers even more. Apparently, only teenagers perceived altruism as a way to improve their own mood.

Myers D., 2004

However, negative moods stimulate acts of kindness only in those adults whose attention is focused on others, that is, those who consider caring for others to be rewarding (Barnett et al., 1980; McMillen et al., 1977). People experiencing deep grief due to the loss of a loved one (death, departure, forced separation) are often so preoccupied with themselves and immersed in their own thoughts that they find it difficult to care for anyone (Aderman, Berkowitz, 1983; Gibbons, Wicklund, 1982 ).

...

William Thompson, Claudia Cowan, and David Rosehanhan recreated a laboratory situation in which subjects, Stanford University students, were completely immersed in their own sad thoughts: they listened alone to a tape-recorded description of a person with cancer and had to imagine that the speech is about their best friend of the opposite sex (Thompson, Cowan, Rosenhan, 1980). The text was designed so that the attention of one group of subjects was focused on their own anxieties and experiences: “He may die, and you will lose a friend. You will never be able to talk to him again. But something even worse could happen: he would die slowly. And every minute you will think that this may be the last moment in his life. For many months you will have to force yourself to smile, although your heart will break with grief. He will slowly fade away before your eyes, and this will continue until life finally leaves him and you are left alone.”

The text that the second group of subjects listened to made them think about the patient:

“He is bedridden and spends his days endlessly waiting. He is always waiting for something to happen. And he doesn’t know what exactly. He tells you that the hardest thing is the unknown.”

When, immediately after the end of the experiment, they were asked, on condition of anonymity, to help a graduate student conduct research, 25% of those listening to the first text and 83% of those who listened to the second text agreed. Subjects in both groups were equally moved by what they heard, but only those whose attention was focused on the other person felt that providing help would bring them relief. In short, if people who are in a bad mood are not completely preoccupied with their own depression or grief, they tend to be empathetic and helpful.

Myers D., 2004

It was also revealed (Barnett, Brian, 1974) that the experience of failure suppresses altruism. Severely punished children showed greater generosity than weakly punished children (De Palma, 1974).

S.K. Nartova-Bochaver (1992) found that involvement in a situation of achievement has virtually no effect on the motivation to help in boys and leads to its weakening in girls. In a situation of success, the motivation to help increases for both, and in case of failure, it decreases.

Psychologists say that happy people, both children and adults, are prone to altruism. Experiments have suggested several reasons for this (Carlson et al., 1988). Helping others improves bad moods and prolongs good ones.

A good mood, in turn, promotes positive thoughts and positive self-esteem, which predispose us to act well (Berkowitz, 1987; Cunningham et al., 1990; Isen et al., 1978). People who are in a good mood are more likely to have positive thoughts and positive associations that lead to good deeds. Those who think positively are likely to act positively too. It does not matter what exactly becomes the source of a good mood - success, thinking about something joyful, or some other positive experience (Salovey et al., 1991).

Polish scientists D. Dolinski and R. Nawrat found that the feeling of relief experienced by a person greatly influences the willingness to provide help (Dolinski, Nawrat, 1998).

...

The experiment, conducted by Alice Isen, Margaret Clark, and Mark Schwartz (Isen, Clark, Schwartz, 1976), consisted of the following: an experimenter's assistant called people who received a gift of office supplies no later than 20 minutes before his call. Saying that he had the wrong number and that he no longer had change for the machine, he asked the person who answered to be kind enough to call him back at the number he needed. As follows from the data presented in the figure, during the first five minutes after receiving a gift, the willingness to help grows, and then - as the good mood “evaporates” - it declines.

The percentage of people who agreed to call back by phone within 20 minutes after receiving a gift.

In the control group, which included subjects who did not receive gifts, the proportion of those who agreed to comply with the confederate’s request was only 10%.

Myers D., 2004

2.3. Empathy and helping behavior

An important personality trait predisposing to helping behavior is empathy. The term "empathy" (from the Greek. sv- "V", flood- “passion”, “suffering”) was introduced by Edward Titchener, who copied the German word einfühlung, used in 1885 by Theodor Lipps in the context of the theory of the effects of art.

Many researchers highlight empathy as the most significant factor in the formation of helping behavior. In numerous works, Bateson (1997–2011) defends the view that empathy is a factor motivating helping behavior. The more a person is inclined to empathy, the higher his willingness to help in a particular case (Coke, Batson, McDevis, 1978). It is characteristic that putting oneself in the place of someone in need of help without experiencing an empathic emotion (“I wouldn’t want to be in his place”) does not lead to the desire to provide help (Coke et al., 1978; Kurdek, 1978). Some authors (Krebs, 1975; Stotland, 1969) note that empathy, in contrast to social norms, directly and directly motivates a person to help.

...

Hoffman (1975, 1978, 1981) in his evolutionary, physiological and ontogenetic theory of empathy based the action of helping on the experience of empathic compassion (empathic distress) as a motivating force. Empathic compassion has two components—an emotional arousal component and a social-cognitive component. The emotional arousal component can be observed even in very young children. It does not yet imply the ability to distinguish between one’s own and others’ experiences. Emotional arousal can be based on various processes: on the contagion of emotion through motor imitation, as suggested by Lipps (1906), on classical conditioned reflexes, or on the idea of ​​how the person himself would feel in the place of someone in need of help.

The social-cognitive component of empathic compassion changes gradually over the course of development, with its development generally consistent with what we know about the development of role taking. After a child - around the end of the first year of life - learns to distinguish between himself and other people, he goes through, according to Hoffman, various stages of the ability to empathize, at each of which his ability to understand another person becomes more adequate. During this development, the child becomes increasingly able to feel empathy for the grief of another person (sympathetic distress)<…>Hoffman cites the results of various studies indicating, firstly, that empathic arousal precedes help (Geer, Jarmecky, 1973), and secondly, that the more severe the manifestations of the victim’s suffering, the higher the empathic arousal was ( Gaertner, Dovidio, 1977), thirdly, that the intensity of empathic arousal is systematically interrelated with subsequent helping actions (Weiss, Boyer, Lombardo, Stich, 1973), and fourthly, that empathically aroused the emotion loses intensity after assistance is provided (Darley, Latane, 1968).

Heckhausen H., 2003

One of the first definitions of empathy was made in 1905 by Sigmund Freud: “We take into account the mental state of the patient, put ourselves in this state and try to understand it by comparing it with our own.”

Empathy– conscious empathy for the current emotional state of another person, without losing the sense of the external origin of this experience. Accordingly, an empath is a person with a developed ability to empathize.

The range of manifestations of empathy varies quite widely: from a light emotional response to complete immersion in the world of feelings of a communication partner. However, in the latter case, the desire to provide help decreases, as the person becomes overly focused on his own experiences (Aderman, Berkowitz, 1983). Therefore, the question of whether empathy is capable of triggering the mechanism of genuine altruism remains debatable. (Batson, Fultz, Schoenrade, 1987).

...

[Batson] formulated a theory based on four assumptions (Batson, 1984). They are as follows: 1) one should distinguish between two emotional reactions associated with the perception of a person in need of help - one’s own discomfort and empathy (empathy); 2) the emotion of empathy occurs when the observer accepts the perspective of a person in distress; the strength of empathic emotion is a multiplicative function of the perceived severity of the distress and the strength of the observer's attachment to the person in distress (attachment includes love for and concern for that person); 3) empathic emotion causes an altruistic reaction to alleviate the situation of someone in need of help, and the strength of this motivation is proportional to the strength of the empathic emotion; 4) empathic emotion mediates the influence of acceptance of the suffering individual's perspective (Shotland et al., 1979) and attachment to him on altruistic motivation.

Heckhausen H., 2003

According to T. P. Gavrilova (1981), empathy can manifest itself in two forms - empathy and sympathy. Empathy- this is the subject’s experience of the same feelings that another experiences. For example, compassion means feeling distress about another person's suffering. Sympathy- this is a responsive, sympathetic attitude towards the experiences and misfortune of another (expression of regret, condolences, etc.). The first, T.P. Gavrilova believes, is based largely on one’s past experience and is associated with the need for one’s own well-being, one’s own interests, the second is based on an understanding of the other person’s troubles and is associated with his needs and interests. Hence empathy is more impulsive, more intense than sympathy. L.P. Kalininsky and co-authors (1981) believe that when separating empathic reactions, it would be more correct to talk not so much about the criterion of multidirectional needs, but about the degree of emotional involvement of one’s self during such a reaction. They believe that empathy is more of an individual property, since it is associated with such a typological feature as weakness of the nervous system, and sympathy is a personal property that is formed in the conditions of social learning.

It seems to me that sympathy does not always reflect empathy; it can even be expressed dispassionately, simply out of politeness (“yes, I understand that this is unpleasant, but it doesn’t concern me, it doesn’t touch me”). For empathy, an emotional response (empathy) is required. Thus, some researchers emphasize the aspect of empathy that the empathizer realizes that the feelings he experiences are a reflection of the feelings of his communication partner. If this does not happen, then such a process, from their point of view, is not empathy, but rather identification with the interlocutor.

The word "empathy" is not associated with any specific emotion (as is the case with the word "compassion") and is equally used to denote empathy for any emotional state.

It is obvious that empathy is innate, genetically determined. Frans de Waal describes many cases when, during a fight, one monkey or monkey came to the rescue of another, hugged her or expressed his emotional support in some other way. One-day-old infants cry more when they hear other children crying (Hoffman, 1981). In maternity hospitals, as soon as one person starts crying, a whole choir of crying voices immediately joins him.

It has been suggested that mirror neurons are involved in the neurophysiological mechanisms of empathy (Preston and Waal, 2002; Decety, 2002; Decety and Jackson, 2004; Gallese, 2001).

...

Modern methods of neurophysiology have made it possible to study the ability to empathize more constructively and meaningfully than philosophers previously did with the help of speculative logic. Not only have neuroscientists clearly shown how and in which parts of the brain compassion arises, but they have also found that conscience is a necessary attribute of compassion.

Three years ago, scientists discovered that empathy is not a figurative expression, but quite literal. It is determined by a person’s ability to actually experience imaginary situations and sensations, for example those that the interlocutor describes to him. Despite the “imaginability” of the situation, in the listener’s brain there is a very real excitation of the very neurons that would be excited if something similar happened to him. In the centers of disgust, excitement arises in response to a story about a friend’s unpleasant experiences, in the centers of tactile sensations - in response to information about tactile sensations, and the same with the centers of pain. So, in the language of neurophysiology, empathy is the adequate excitation of neurons in response to an imaginary signal.

Tania Singer from University College London and her colleagues used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study these subtle substances. Unlike conventional electroencephalography, which records the responses of relatively large areas of the brain, this advanced technique can monitor the firing of groups of neurons and even individual neurons. MRI captures a “portrait” of the brain immediately at the moment of response to an external signal. London neuroscientists were interested in the process of the emergence of the pain empathy response in the brain, as well as whether the empathy response appears for people with social and antisocial behavior. In the experiment, the criterion of sociality was the ability to cooperate and corporate integrity. In fact, behind the complex and scrupulously precise formulations of scientists there is a simple human question: can a person who has proven himself to be an egoist and a fraudster count on simple human sympathy?

At the first stage of the experiment, 32 subjects - half of them men, half of them women - formed ideas about the honesty of two “decoy ducks” (specially hired actors). Each subject played with two actors a corporate economic game, in which one actor played honestly, so that not only he himself, but also his partner earned points or money, and the other deceived his partners in order to enrich himself. As a result, after the game, the subject considered one actor a kind fellow, and the second – an inveterate egoist-fraudster.

In the second stage, subjects were shown through indirect signals that the honest and dishonest players were experiencing pain. During the demonstration of the signals, the subjects had a brain tomogram taken. What did it turn out to be? Everyone sympathized with the honest player: both men and women. In other words, in response to an indirect signal about the experience of pain by an honest player, specific pain arousal was recorded in the pain centers of the subjects.

What about the scammers? Almost all of the women tested empathized with dishonest players just as much as with honest ones. But men - no. The signal about the experience of pain by a dishonest player did not evoke any sympathy in them! Moreover, instead of pain centers, a special “reward” center was excited in the majority of male subjects. Knowing that the cheating player was in pain, most men felt literal schadenfreude, or a legitimate sense of revenge and justice. In women, schadenfreude was rarely recorded.

In these experiments, our intuitions about the mercy of women and the vindictiveness of men were clearly confirmed. In addition, it became obvious why, from ancient times, men took on the roles of judges and punishers: after all, legislation is a set of rules of social behavior, violators do not evoke any sympathy from male judges, and the execution of a sentence excites their pleasure centers. A woman in such a matter can show unauthorized compassion.

Based on Internet materials (Singer T. et al. Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others)

A pronounced ability to empathize is a professionally important quality for people whose work is directly related to people (officials, managers, salespeople, teachers, psychologists, psychotherapists, etc.).

In medicine and psychotherapy, empathy is often called what in psychology is called empathic listening– understanding the emotional state of another person and demonstrating this understanding. For example, when a doctor interviews a patient, showing empathy means, firstly, understanding the patient’s words, feelings and gestures, and secondly, demonstrating this understanding in such a way that it becomes clear to the patient that the doctor is aware of his experiences. Thus, the emphasis is on the objective side of the process, and empathy means the ability to gather information about the patient's thoughts and feelings. The purpose of such empathic listening is to let the patient know that he is being listened to and to encourage him to express his feelings more fully, allowing the doctor or therapist, in turn, to gain a more complete understanding of the topic of the story.

T. P. Gavrilova studied the age and gender manifestations of both forms of empathy and found that empathy, as a more direct, concentrated form of empathy, is more characteristic of younger schoolchildren, and empathy, as a more complex form of empathic experience mediated by moral knowledge, is characteristic of adolescents. In addition, it was revealed that empathy for adults and animals was more often expressed in boys, and empathy - in girls. Empathy for peers, on the contrary, was more often expressed by girls, and sympathy by boys. Overall, both boys and girls were more likely to express sympathy than empathy.

Empathy is unknown to those who are prone to cruelty (Miller & Eisenberg, 1988).

It is a common belief that a person with a strong sense of empathy will certainly help someone in need.

...

In one experiment, Kansas State University students watched a young woman “suffer” as she allegedly received an electric shock (Batson et al., 1981). During the pause, the “victim,” whose suffering no one doubted, explained to the experimenter the origin of her increased sensitivity to electric current: it turns out that as a child she fell on a fence that was energized. Sympathizing with her, the experimenter suggested the following way out of the situation: to bring the experiment to an end, ask the observer (whose role was played by the real subject) if she would agree to change places with her and take the remaining blows. Previously, half of the real subjects were convinced that the “victim” was a person close to them in spirit, sharing their moral values ​​and interests, which aroused their empathy. The second group of subjects were also told that their participation in the experiment had ended and that they would not have to watch the “suffering of the victim” if it had to be prolonged. Nevertheless, almost all the participants in the experiment, whose empathy the researchers had previously “awakened,” expressed their readiness to change places with the “victim.”

Myers D., 2004

However, the role of empathy as a motivator of helping behavior is disputed by some scholars. M. Schaller and R. Cialdini (Schaller, Cialdini, 1988) convinced participants in one of their experiments that their bad mood at the sight of a victim could be improved, in addition to providing help, by some “more optimistic” impression, for example, listening to a funny audio recording. In this case, people who felt empathy were not particularly eager to help. Due to this

Schaller and Cialdini concluded that even if they feel empathy for the victim, people are not quick to help if they have another way to improve their mood.

2.4. Pity as a motivator of helping behavior

One of the emotions that awakens a person to helping behavior is pity. It can be considered as one of the manifestations of empathy, expressed in compassion, condolences to someone, participation in someone. They take pity on the weak, the infirm, most often children, the elderly, and the disabled; the strong do not evoke pity, obviously because people believe that they can cope with their problems themselves.

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A pity

A feeling that makes a person susceptible to the suffering and misfortune of another person. In other words, to have pity means to want the suffering of another to be alleviated, to sympathize with him, while hoping that such a fate will avoid you. For many people, the feeling of pity is associated with an emotional reaction that forces them to come to the aid of the sufferer, otherwise they feel guilty. In pity, feelings and emotions play a major role, while in compassion, objectivity predominates.

On the other hand, to feel pity for a person means to believe that he himself is not able to get out of trouble. Such a feeling, in essence, never helps a person to pull himself together, only emphasizing for him his incompetence. If you want to make sure of this, ask any disabled person how he feels and whether he likes it when people feel sorry for him. In most cases the answer will be no. People who are inclined to feel sorry for others are themselves, as a rule, too fusional and vulnerable, they take on roles very easily victims. When two people feel sorry for each other, the likelihood that they will find effective solutions that are beneficial to them is very small. They will become even more bogged down in their own sacrificial energy, that’s all. In order to get rid of the habit of feeling sorry for everyone, but not going to the other extreme and becoming ruthless, it is necessary to remember in such cases about responsibility. In this way we come to compassion And empathy towards those who are unlucky in some way, and at the same time we encourage them, help them to pull themselves together.

Bourbo L., Saint-Jacques, 2005

In general, people's attitudes towards pity are different. There is an opinion that pity is humiliating for the one being pitied. Therefore, from this point of view, one should not show pity.

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The most despicable form of cowardice is self-pity.

Marcus Aurelius

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Pity is an imitation of love.

Maksim Gorky

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Pity is the most useless thing in the world, it is the other side of gloating.

Erich Maria Remarque

However, another point of view is also expressed. Pity is seen as the dignity of the person who shows it, and its absence is considered a manifestation of indifference and even cruelty.

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In high souls, pity is a frequent guest.

Geoffrey Chaucer

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The more worthy a person is, the more people he sympathizes with.

Francis Bacon

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High hearts are vulnerable to pity,

Participation in the weak is not the weakness of a brave man.

Pierre Corneille

One day there was a discussion on the Internet about pity. Some participants in the discussion supported the position that pity humiliates a person, others argued for its necessity, considering it a virtue.

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Tanya: In my brain I understand that there is nothing wrong with pity, but I internally shudder and feel nauseous when I find myself in the shoes of the one being pitied. Because I know that I am strong and that I can handle this. And there are people with whom you can afford to be weak. Because it is weak. Because I want to dial the phone number and whine: “I’m scared...” And hear in response: “Little one, don’t cry, everything will be fine, I promise.” And you understand: everything will really be fine, because he regrets. For real. I did not remain indifferent, I experienced an emotion akin to regret (yes, these words have the same root), sympathy, condolences.

Poslan_za_elkoy: In my opinion, this is still a purely Soviet idea that pity, supposedly, humiliates a person. Akin to the same Soviet thought, how work elevates. However, not all work elevates and not all pity humiliates.

Visska: Pity humiliates, because they feel sorry for the weak, the orphaned and the wretched. Pity humiliates, because people will never feel sorry for an equal. Pity humiliates because the one who feels sorry looks down on him contemptuously, and this is noticeable. Therefore, there is absolutely no pity! They sympathize with the strong and equal, and sympathy does not humiliate.

Sergeoaken: I don’t understand why pity is treated so poorly. I personally have never experienced the derogatory pity that is mostly talked about here. Maybe that’s why for me pity is empathy. If you feel sorry for a person, he will understand that he is not alone, and someone understands him, he will pull himself together and overcome difficulties.

Alenka: I also think that pity is humiliating. Still, pity and sympathy are two different concepts. For me, empathy means complicity. Pity does not oblige you to anything, you regret it and forget.

lisena_lisonka: Passive pity is a nasty thing, because you realize your own powerlessness to help in any way. Active pity is a stressful thing because it requires some action from you. Conclusion: you need to regret selectively, so that you have strength for the second, and your nerves are not wasted in vain on the first.

Happybelka: Momentary pity is a destructive feeling that sometimes pushes you to rash actions (personal experience). I struggle with this feeling in myself, this is the edge of pathology - extrapolating myself into a subject of pity. “But if I suffered like this...” Pity is passive and causes pain. In order to help those who need it, we need active sympathy, not pity.

Nordi: I myself am very compassionate (I often feel sorry for someone) and I love it when people feel sorry for me. In general, I think it’s wonderful when people show pity and sympathy for each other - these are signs of kindness and humanity. The Lord God also called on people to treat each other with kindness and compassion in difficult times. This indicates that a person has a soul. Unfortunately, today you don’t see this so often, I would like to see more, perhaps then the world and the atmosphere in society will become kinder.

Re: Sympathy is false help, an expression of pity. Without help. Naive: Pity is probably associated (maybe not always) with love, with kindness. It’s not for nothing that in the old days they said: I feel sorry for you, that is, I love you.

Verbashka: I hate it when people try to feel sorry for me. When a person feels sorry for me, he seems to think that I can’t cope on my own, that I’m weak and won’t be able to deal with problems. Pity is akin to contempt.

Zergomat: Pity is the indulgence of an object that craves pity. Pity is evil; asking for pity means you don’t want to change; you feel sorry, it means you indulge the weakness of the spirit of the person asking.

TuneIn: Of course, you can’t feel sorry for everyone, and it’s not useful to feel sorry for everyone—sometimes it’s harmful. But completely forgetting about it and living in the “real world” with stern faces is not good. Without sparing anyone, we become callous and sometimes become cruel, forgetting about humanity.

Mikhail: The most petty, vile and hypocritical feeling. I don’t want to be pitied, and I don’t want to feel sorry for anyone. If they feel sorry for me, it means that I am not worthy of anything more than pity. If I feel sorry for someone, it means that I am not capable of better feelings. Pity is a way to rise in your own eyes with the least amount of effort. Pity is the feeling of lazy people and moral impotents!

Air: How I hate pity! Of course, I understand that this, in most cases, is with the best intentions, but... You feel inferior, you are angry with yourself for causing pity, you feel ashamed for the same reasons... If you feel bad and someone says : “Poor!”, then your whole being is torn to pieces from the desire to go somewhere far away, so that no one sees you, does not feel sorry for you... And then forget everything that upset you and appear joyful...

Charley Monroe: A worthless feeling. Or rather, even inappropriate. There is a difference between pity and sympathy. If sympathy is still acceptable, then pity... To pity = to recognize one as flawed, inferior, deprived. Does anyone want to admit that they are like this?

Sembatsuruorikata: I can understand sympathy. Empathy. But not this. Pity is like a cross. When you are recognized as unhappy, you don’t know what to answer...

Scarlett91: Pity is necessary. What would we do without her?! Sometimes you feel disgusting, and when dad or mom starts to feel sorry for you, it becomes so nice. Pity not only humiliates. Pity is also some manifestation of attention, kindness and sympathy. We all encounter moments in life when we want to be pitied, consoled, and reassured.

Warren: How nice it is to read everyone who considers pity a good feeling! I feel sorry for almost all people except the worst ones. But about ten years ago, the overwhelming majority for some reason believed that pity was bad, and tried to make everyone “ruthless freaks,” especially their children. I'm glad that compared to the nineties, people have become kinder.

The participants in the discussion are right that pity can be passive and contemplative. But in many cases it leads to active help, although a simple expression of sympathy in certain situations (grief, etc.) can also help a person overcome an existing negative state. And the fact that many express the point of view that pity humiliates a person, because it makes him flawed, inferior, perhaps explains one of the features of the domestic mentality: we are embarrassed by people with disabilities and therefore do not provide them with help unless we are asked to do so.

It can be assumed that different attitudes to pity are influenced by individual and personal characteristics of a person, for example, such as emotional excitability, altruism or selfishness, etc.

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Isn't pity outdated?

Each of us was pitied as a child. They felt sorry for the bruised hand, for the fact that the best friend cheated for the first time, and the teacher unfairly gave her a bad mark.

But notice how often in recent years you have heard: “Why are you crying? You’re a future man!” (words addressed to the child). By the way, will such a child be able to sympathize with others later, as an adult? They didn’t allow him to cry, they didn’t feel sorry for him.

Many, I think, will object to me. They will say that pity and participation are different concepts.

I don’t argue, perhaps the words “participation” and “participate” have the same root. Both of them are aimed at some kind of action. And if you can really help someone through deeds, you should help. But sometimes a person doesn’t need anything other than a word, an ordinary word. And not only. Not every trouble, as they say, will be dealt with with my hands. It’s just that a person needs to speak out, he needs to be understood at that moment and... regretted it.

There are people who are flint. You can't get anything out of them. They carry their grief within themselves and do not want to be pitied. They usually say that they won’t help you, they’ll just talk. There are also those who are happy about someone else's misfortune. It's better to stay away from such people. And there are those whom everyone always pities... I personally don’t trust them. Well, everything can’t always be bad for a person. There must be an outlet somewhere.

More recently, the expression “pity humiliates a person” has appeared. It’s as if it’s better to endure, not cry, not complain. As they say, “you can’t help grief with tears” or “Moscow doesn’t believe in tears.” Yes, all this is wrong. You need to cry when you cry, and complain to your loved ones, your loved ones, so that it becomes easier. Well, at least “pour out” your difficulties on paper, so as not to walk around and carry a heavy burden of sadness and grief.

Pity, love, compassion, sympathy, care, mutual assistance. Everything seems, at first glance, to be different words. But how do they complement one another?

So, has pity exhausted itself in our time? Is it outdated? Maybe there is no particular need for it. After all, they say that love rules the world. But not pity.

What about pity? Abandon it, take it to a landfill, throw it in the attic?

Well, I do not. As long as a person is alive, pity will be alive, one of the most vital feelings.

MNG: Hello Diana! I read several articles written by psychologists about the relationship between a man and a woman, and I became interested in the question of pity.

There is an opinion that a woman should not feel sorry for a man, become a “mother” for him, that this leads to<.>he stops seeing her as a desirable woman and loses the ability to take responsibility.

I noticed in myself that I have a tendency to feel sorry for men and sympathize with them.<…>From the experience of past relationships, I realized that this does not lead to good. As soon as pity appeared, very soon I began to suffocate - the streams of complaints kept growing, I myself began to experience the feelings with which they turned to me for consolation. At the same time, the desire to be with this person disappeared, because I felt that he had submitted to my will and turned into a snotty whiner, a faithful dog. But it’s even harder to leave this defenseless, pathetic creature, who threatened to die without me, but it was hard not because of love, but because of the responsibility for his life.

So, would you like some advice on how to not let a man complain without seeming indifferent? I don't understand where the line is between sympathy and pity.

Psychologist Dianka: Hello MNG. I suggest you understand for yourself what pity and what sympathy means to you. And if it’s difficult to draw a line between them, then maybe you should first understand what the difference is?

You write that you want to understand how to stop a man from complaining without seeming indifferent. You can clarify: Do you want not to seem indifferent or not to be indifferent? I suggest you understand why it is important for you to know how to react when a man has difficulties. I think that after you answer these questions, it will be clearer to you what to do about it, and to me – how to help. Good luck! MNG: This is exactly the problem - I can’t tell the difference for myself. It’s impossible to put everything on the shelves!

As I understand it, “to feel sorry” means to assent and say, “Oh, you poor thing! how I feel sorry for you” and revel in this feeling together, and “sympathize” - experience what the other feels, feel in his place and think (I emphasize the word think), what can I do to alleviate his suffering or improve his condition (what words to choose, how to cheer him up, when it’s better to remain silent, what useful things to do).

I want not to seem indifferent, because by nature I simply cannot be indifferent to a loved one... Why? To be there in difficult times and support, and if globally, then, among other things, relationships are built on this - on participation and moral support.

Psychologist Dianka: If I understand correctly, you don’t want to be indifferent towards your loved one, you don’t want to seem indifferent to him. I understand well your desire to support your loved one. But we don’t always know exactly how to support someone who is close to us. And we can’t necessarily feel what he feels at that moment, or understand what he feels. You can ask him, or you can support him in the way that you think is correct, and look at the reaction. You can ask when the situation is over, for the future. The main thing is to do what you really sincerely want to do now. Maybe you think that must sympathize with a loved one and somehow express this sympathy? I have another proposal for you: do at this moment what you really want to do. And don't do anything you don't want to do. Maybe the fact that you are with him is already valuable for your man?

And if you do what you really want, you will not feel sorry for a man when you yourself do not want it, you will not plunge into pity.

Based on Internet materials

2.5. Conscience (conscientiousness) as a regulator of helping behavior

An important personality quality that contributes to making a decision to provide help to a person in need is conscience. Even Charles Darwin (“The Descent of Man,” Chapters II and III) said that if, under the influence of egoism, we do not follow this desire and, for example, do not help our neighbor in trouble, then later, when we vividly imagine the distress we are experiencing , the desire to help our neighbor will arise again and his dissatisfaction will cause in us a painful feeling of reproach.

German philosopher of the 18th century. P. A. Golbach noted that conscience is our internal judge, unmistakably indicating how much our actions deserve respect or censure from our loved ones.

V. Dahl wrote that conscience is moral consciousness, moral instinct or feeling in a person; inner consciousness of good and evil; the secret place of the soul, in which approval or condemnation of every action is echoed; the ability to recognize the quality of an action; a feeling that encourages truth and goodness, turning away from lies and evil; involuntary love for good and truth; innate truth in varying degrees of development.

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Point of view

Reason itself is not capable of considering some actions as moral and others as immoral. To do this, he must be guided by his conscience. Outside of conscience, reason can only find certain actions or actions smart or stupid, expedient or inexpedient, rational or irrational, profitable or unprofitable, and nothing more.

It is conscience that prompts the mind not only to see personal gain or miscalculation in certain actions, but also to evaluate actions from a moral point of view. How does conscience manage to do this? By influencing the mind with the help of moral arguments.

Based on Internet materials

The Dictionary of the Russian Language by S. I. Ozhegov says: “Conscience is a sense of moral responsibility for one’s behavior before people around us and society.”

The Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary (1983) provides a more detailed definition of conscience. It is defined as “a category of ethics that characterizes an individual’s ability to exercise moral self-control, independently formulate moral duties for himself, demand that he fulfill them, and make a self-assessment of his actions; one of the expressions of a person’s moral self-awareness. Conscience manifests itself both in the form of rational awareness of the moral significance of the actions performed, and in the form of emotional experiences (for example, “remorse”).”

Conscience addresses the dignity of the individual. Conscience is a person’s responsibility to himself and other people as a bearer of higher, moral values. Therefore, conscience is the most perfect form of self-control. A. S. Makarenko noted that the true value of a person is found in “acts in secret” - in the way she behaves when “no one sees, hears and no one checks” her. This primarily relates to conscience. The voice of conscience sounds in a person when there is no external control and the subject, left to himself, seemingly can act according to arbitrariness, without any restrictions. However, it is conscience that turns out to be the limiter of boundless freedom, which is nothing more than a warning and reproach from one’s own self. Conscience disturbs the individual, does not allow him to fall asleep morally, and forces the individual to adjust his actions in accordance with the values ​​and attitudes existing in society. Conscience appeals to our feelings and emotions, will and reason, urging us to act in accordance with what we consider good and right. Conscience is our internal incorruptible judge. We cannot convince ourselves that we did good and right if our conscience accuses us of the opposite. Thanks to conscience, a state of empathy is achieved, therefore conscience, being a phenomenon of individual consciousness, is at the same time intra-individual.

A conscientious person is a person with a keen sense of moral duty who places high moral demands on himself. In ordinary speech, the expressions “peaceful conscience” or “clear conscience” are used. They mean the fact that a person is aware of the fulfillment of his obligations or the realization of all his capabilities in a given specific situation.

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One day, Francis of Assisi was replacing his father in a shop, and a beggar entered it and asked for alms “out of love for God.” And Francis at this time was shifting the goods and answered unkindly, “God will provide.” But when the beggar left, Francis was struck like a thunderbolt by the thought that if they had asked him now not for a stale piece or a copper penny for God’s sake, but for a piece of cloth or a purse of gold for some count or baron, he would never have refused! And he denied the poor man his daily bread!..

From then on, as life says, he gave to the poor, if he met him, everything that was in his pockets, and when there was no money, he took off his clothes and gave them away.