| Popis: |
“Altruism” is a term used by many disciplines such as biology, economics, sociology, and psychology; it varies in its definition, even among researchers in the same field. This lack of common ground concerning the definition has often led to misunderstandings. In this work, we try to provide a “lay of the land” examination of prosocial behavior and propose a hierarchical model of prosocial behavior that provides an overview of the hierarchical structure and position of several definitions of altruism. Additionally, we implement the dimensions of tolerance for harm done to oneself or others as well as the motivation through benefits to others or oneself to systematize the different prosocial categories and definitory approaches on each hierarchical level. The hierarchical levels of our model include firstly helping behavior, comprising both voluntary and involuntary conduct benefitting others; secondly the general category of prosocial behavior, which is voluntary helping, independent from one’s reasons for helping; moreover and most importantly we debate different kinds of prosocial behavior according to the source of general motivation; concepts from evolutionary perspectives; social exchange theory; situation-specific motivational aspects of prosocial behavior and social interaction rules. We propose this model to offer common ground for communication, and to spread awareness of the hierarchical differences in the various definitions of “altruism” in diverse fields of research. |
