Gender and Altruism

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses and assesses whether there is a relationship between gender and altruism. The paper defines altruism and discusses the results of a survey conducted to determine if any differences exist between males and females tendency to perform altruistic acts. It concludes that independent t-test results from the data showed that generally, there is no established significant relationship between gender of the individual and his/her propensity to commit acts of altruism.

From the Paper:

"The feeling of being "at one with the other" is an important concept that must be taken into consideration in understanding altruism. What the findings showed is that altruism is best assessed not by the degree of help that one gives to the other, nor the feeling of empathy that is generated from the situation or scenario presented. The concept of oneness is found to be significant with the assessment of altruistic behavior (Maner et. al., 2002:1605). In the scenarios mentioned earlier, which yielded the highest and lowest mean score responses from both male and female respondents, the feeling of "oneness" is evident in the car scenarios, since all respondents felt positively and negatively for the "jumpstart" and "flat tire" scenarios, respectively."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Cialdini, R., S. Brown, B. Lewis, C. Luce, and S. Neuberg. (1997). "Reinterpreting the empathy-altruism relationship: when one into one equals oneness." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 73, No. 3.
• Maner, J., C. Luce, S, Neuberg, R. Cialdini, S. Brown, and B. Sagarin. (2002). "The effects of perspective taking on motivations for helping: still no evidence for altruism." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 28, No. 11.

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