Mary Crockett's Theory Of Altruism

Molly Crockett and colleagues at the University College London were interested in measuring how much a person cares for another, relative to caring for themselves. They observed volunteers who were asked to make a series of decisions “between different amounts of money and different amounts of moderately painful eclectic shocks” (Crockett). Through their research, they were able “calculate how much a person was willing to sacrifice to prevent shocks to either themselves or to the receiver” (Crocket). Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort that a person feels when two of their cognitions, such as beliefs and attitudes, conflict with each other. It also occurs when a person behaves in ways that are inconsistent with their conception of themselves. …show more content…
I think an important reason we engage in altruistic behavior is to fulfil self-serving motivations. In some instances, we behave altruistically because we want to be, think, and feel helpful while also being perceived as helpful. Or we may want to feel like we are a good person and be perceived as good person. I do not agree with Crockett when she quotes Zaki saying that it is illogical “to think of any human behavior as amotivated” (Crocket) and that all altruistic behaviors are engaged solely because we want to. I think we engage in altruistic behaviors for both selfish and selfless reasons.
In Mary Crockett’s research, she and colleagues sought to quantify “how much people care about others, relative to themselves” (Crocket). To measure this, Crocket et al. asked “how much money would you give up to prevent a stranger’s pain? And how does this compare too what you would pay to prevent your own pain?” …show more content…
On average, people were willing to spend double the amount of money to prevent another person from receiving a shock than they were willing to spend to prevent themselves from receiving pain. Although the results could not provide evidence that altruism is either innate or learned through experiences, Crockett discusses how in previous research there has been evidence that 3-month old infants showed preference for helpful looking characters rather than harmful looking ones. This suggests that altruism and the desire to be helpful to others may be an inherent quality in humans. As touched upon earlier, altruism may somewhat be motivated bythe need to feel good about ourselves, the need to be accurate, and the need to feel as though we belong. Cognitive dissonance may also play an important roll in altruistic