Altruistic Ones Research Articles

Альтруизм вместе с эгоизмом: новая этическая формула и основные следствия. Часть 2

The article represents a thorough analysis of the most important results obtained with the help of the Experience sampling methods (ESM) in the frame of the author's longitudinal studies. The author explores positive (not negative, as he traditionally supposed) correlations between the scores of the egoism scale (“good, benefit for oneself”) and the altruism scale (“good, benefit for other people”). He also explores a certain predominance of the egoistic scores over the altruistic ones in most life situations that have been estimated in the course of the explorations. Some mental experiments are also conducted. They help to follow possible perspectives of the different life choices. The author makes a conclusion that the overall summing of the individual egoistic benefit together with the altruistic use got by other people creates a maximal quantity of good - the value, which is traditionally studied by ethics. A combination (not an opposition as it was adopted earlier) of altruism and egoism in a productive individual activity responds to the characteristics of the ideal ethical formula, in which a personal and a social interest correspond to each other but are not identical. In the contrary, an individual will either have to fully submit his personal interests either to social ones (an altruism dominance), or choose a short-term hedonism as the main life orientation (egoism dominance). Both of the above mentioned perspectives are demonstrated as deficient. In the last part of the article, the author recommends to introduce the “rational egoism” (“rational altruism”) lessons at schools, where the pupils could discuss and practically participate in the disputable and complex life situations based on the discovered interaction between the egoistic and altruistic components of their behavior.

A Web Application for Medicine, Food, Books & Cloth Collection and Donation

Abstract: The increase within the quantity of wastage in terms of Medicines, food, books, clothes make the necessity in terms of donation. There are many those that donates food, clothes and books etc. manually by vising completely different places on their own so as to resolve this crisis of needed things wastage in our country. Donations like Medicines, food, clothes and books once given with correct organization & correct management will save many lives and might ease the suffering of the poor and impoverished ones. The “Altruistic ones” acts as a connecting link between the donors and also the NGOs. Considering the number of wastages goes in a very year, donation of unused medicines together with alternative donations like food, books and clothes appear a decent thanks to get out of it because the world is growing quick with the new technologies individuals also are adapting it. Through our web-based application donor from anyplace will present the items at one platform.

Path of intuitive compassion to transform conflicts into enduring peace and prosperity: Symmetry across domains of reiterated prisoner's dilemma, dyadic active inference, and Mahayana Buddhism.

Conflicts are increasingly intensified among the members of the community, making it almost impossible to extend compassion-defined as a wish to relieve others from suffering-from one side to the other, especially when both sides believe that "life is a battle of us the good vs. them the evil." Is compassion even relevant to conflicts? The answer depends on how a conflict is framed in one's perception. If a conflict is perceived in a frame of zero-sum competition, then compassion is meaningless in such a "tug-of-war" mindset. Conversely, if perceived in a non-zero-sum frame-as demonstrated in reiterated prisoner's dilemma (rPD) in which two players may interdependently render win-win, lose-lose, win-lose, or lose-win scenarios by their actions-then compassion can help achieve the most preferable outcomes for all in a "dyadic dance" mindset. In this article, we present a path of intuitive compassion by pointing to symmetry across three distinct domains of rPD, dyadic active inference, and Mahayana Buddhism. In each of these domains, conflicts serve as points of bifurcation on a bidirectional path, and compassion as a conflict-proof commitment to carrying out the best strategies-even if assessed for one's own sake only-that consistently produce optimal payoffs in rPD, minimal stress in dyadic active inference, and limitless joy of ultimate enlightenment in Mahayana Buddhism. Conversely, a lack of compassion is caused by invalid beliefs that obscure the nature of reality in these domains, causing conflicts to produce even more conflicts. These invalid beliefs are produced by mistakes of over-reduction, over-separation, and over-compression in the mind, and therefore, a person's mindset is overly compressed from a multidimensional frame to a one-dimensional frame. Taken together, intuitive compassion is not about how to balance one's self-serving goals with altruistic ones. Rather, it is a conflict-proof commitment to transforming conflicts into enduring peace and prosperity according to the ultimate nature of reality. The work presented here may serve as a preliminary science-informed introduction to a genre of time-tested compassion meditations, i.e., lojong mind training, for the world laden with conflicts, starting from the conflicts in close relationships to those in geopolitics.

Эгоизм и мораль: экспериментальное исследование и теоретический дискурс. Часть 1

The article is dedicated to clearing out the question, whether any egoism manifestation contradicts the morality norms. With this aim, the author firstly separates two types of situations, in which our representations concerning the moral values of actions can change significantly. Consequently, such types of (extreme as a rule) situations, as well as the moral conclusions based on them cannot be regarded as reliable for an ordinary everyday life. Next, the author searches for the daily life situations, in which an egoistic behavior of an individual could possibly contradict to the moral norms and values. Doing that, the author of the paper uses not only theoretical discourse, but also demonstrates the experimental results of his own longitudinal investigations conducted with the help of the Experience Sampling Methods (ESM). Within the daily blanks, among others, we used the so-called “egoism scale” (“good, benefit for oneself”) and the “altruism scale” (“good, benefit for other people”). We have found out, that the situations with a big predominance of the egoistic scores over the altruistic ones have really the signs of the egoistic individual behavior, but do not contradict to morality norms, since they are not connected to doing harm to other people - in distinction to some other hypothetical situations. The author strengthens his theoretical discourse with numerous illustrative examples. In general, he demonstrates and proves that negativel connotations a priori used by some moral philosophers in the notion of egoism are one-sided and erroneous to a large degree, not corresponding to the reality. Continuation of the discussion is planned.

New insights on motives for choosing social work as a career: answers from students and newly qualified social workers

ABSTRACT This study examines the motives behind the choice of social work as a career, and using the vocabulary of motives and folk logic as supporting theoretical concepts looks at how these motives can be understood. The study draws on data collected in Sweden through a questionnaire administrated to 583 newly qualified social workers and from written descriptions by 295 first-term social work students. The results show that there are several motives for undertaking social work as a career: altruistic ones, professional strategic ones, motives founded in personal experiences, and motives related to the individual’s personal characteristics. The last-mentioned motive is a new discovery in research, while the others have been well established for some time.

Emergent multilevel selection in a simple spatial model of the evolution of altruism.

Theories on the evolutionary origins of altruistic behavior have a long history and have become a canonical part of the theory of evolution. Nevertheless, the mechanisms that allow altruism to appear and persist are still incompletely understood. It is well known, however, that the spatial structure of populations is an important determinant. In both theoretical and experimental studies, much attention has been devoted to populations that are subdivided into discrete groups. Such studies typically imposed the structure and dynamics of the groups by hand. Here, we instead present a simple individual-based model in which altruistic organisms spontaneously self-organize into spatially separated colonies that themselves reproduce by binary fission and hence behave as Darwinian entities in their own right. Using software to automatically track the rise and fall of colonies, we are able to apply formal theory on multilevel selection and thus quantify the within- and among-group dynamics. This reveals that individual colonies inevitably succumb to defectors in a within-colony “tragedy of the commons”. Even so, altruism persists in the population because more altruistic colonies reproduce more frequently and drive less altruistic ones to extinction. Evidently, the colonies promote the selection of altruism but in turn depend on altruism for their existence; the selection of altruism hence involves a kind of evolutionary bootstrapping. The emergence of the colonies also depends crucially on the length scales of motility, altruism, and competition. This reconfirms the general relevance of these scales for social evolution, but also stresses that their impact can only be understood fully in the light of the emergent eco-evolutionary spatial patterns. The results also suggest that emergent spatial population patterns can function as a starting point for transitions of individuality.

Corporate Social Inclusion Practices Across Nations: Organizational and Institutional Enablers

We develop a theoretical framework to explain the enablers of corporate social inclusion practices across nations. Building on the egoism-altruism distinction in the social psychology literature, we distinguish between egoistic and altruistic corporate social inclusion practices and theorize their differences in enabling mechanisms. Specifically, we argue that while managerial diversity and cross-sector connections, as two organizational enablers, positively contribute to both social inclusion practices, their effects are more potent on egoistic corporate social inclusion practices in comparison to altruistic ones. Furthermore, home government social welfare provision, as an institutional enabler, substitutes organizational enablers in developing egoistic corporate social inclusion practices but augments the influence of organizational enablers on altruistic corporate social practices. We find support for our arguments by analyzing social inclusion practices by 760 high-tech firms in 48 countries from 2005-2016.

Maternal and Paternal Parenting Practices and Prosocial Behaviors in Hong Kong: The Moderating Roles of Adolescents’ Gender and Age

This study examined adolescents’ perceived paternal and maternal parenting in relation to different types of prosocial behaviors. Adolescent gender and age were considered as moderators. Participants included 439 Grades 7–11 adolescents (55.13% girls) from five secondary schools in Hong Kong. Path analysis indicated that maternal and paternal autonomy support and maternal control were associated positively with compliant, public, and emotional prosocial behaviors. Paternal control was associated positively with emotional prosocial behaviors only. Paternal autonomy support and maternal control were associated positively with dire prosocial behaviors but negatively with altruistic ones. No age differences were found from multi-group analyses. However, significant gender differences were evident. Paternal autonomy support and maternal control were associated with boys’ and girls’ prosocial behaviors; maternal autonomy support and paternal control were associated with girls’ prosocial behaviors only. Findings suggest that paternal and maternal parenting are associated with prosocial behaviors in meaningful ways depending on adolescents’ gender.

The right to move and the right to exclude: Ilya Somin and ‘foot voting’

The right to move and the right to exclude: Ilya Somin and ‘foot voting’

Generation Z consumers' motives and barriers to purchasing organic food products in Serbia

The aim of this study is to identify and analyze the main motives and barriers for purchasing organic food in the Generation Z market segment in Serbia. A quantitative study was conducted through a survey questionnaire filled out by 213 students from three universities. The results are based on descriptive statistics, the independent samples t-test and the analysis of variance. Quality and health protection and improvement are identified as the primary motives for purchasing organic food, proving that egoistic motives prevail over altruistic ones. The most important barriers hindering organic food consumption are high price, lack of information, and limited availability. The willingness of Generation Z members to accept high market prices for organic food depends on their monthly household income. These findings could be used by organic food producers and retailers to predict buying behavior and adapt their promotional activities on the Serbian market.

PRINCIPALES MOTIVACIONES DEL CONSUMIDOR DE ALIMENTOS ECOLÓGICOS EN ITALIA. EL CASO DEL ACEITE DE OLIVA

A pesar del crecimiento generalizado de la agricultura ecológica en Europa, el comportamiento de los mercados de alimentos ecológicos es diferente entre países. Así, en algunos países como Italia hay un gran desequilibrio entre producción y consumo, y se provoca que parte de la producción se destine a mercados exteriores. Esta situación es evidente en el aceite de oliva, un producto emblemático en el sector agrícola italiano. En este contexto, el desarrollo de la demanda interna es una prioridad. Sin embargo, para diseñar estrategias de mercadotecnia efectivas que contribuyan a dicho desarrollo es necesario conocer el comportamiento del consumidor. Bajo la hipótesis de que el principal motivo de compra de los consumidores es de tipo altruista (relacionado con el medio ambiente, la ecología, el bienestar animal o el desarrollo rural y local), el objetivo de este estudio fue conocer las principales motivaciones del consumidor de aceite de oliva ecológico. La respuesta a este objetivo se basó en la Teoría Medios-Fin y para el análisis se utilizó la técnica de “hard laddering”, aplicada a una muestra de 25 sujetos. Los resultados mostraron que la salud es el fin último que motiva la compra del aceite de oliva ecológico, y que las motivaciones egoístas priman sobre las altruistas en la decisión de compra o consumo de este tipo de alimentos.

Becoming an English Teacher: Voices from Nepal

Motivations for choosing English teacher as a career have attracted considerable attention in recent years, and a number of research studies have been conducted to gain insights into pre-service and in-service teachers’ reasons for entering teacher education programmes. This study aimed at investigating motivating factors to choose English language teaching as a career. It also aimed at exploring the job satisfaction level of the participants, and the professional development activities they adopt to develop their professional competence. Five teachers of English who have been teaching English at different levels of education in Nepal for ten years now participated in this study. The narrative inquiry approach was adopted as a research design for this study. Interview was used as a tool for data collection. The study contains qualitative data only. The data were described and analyzed descriptively. The study revealed that the participants chose English teacher as career due to the influence of their role model English teachers; the love for the subject, the social prestige the English teachers deserved and the passion for teaching. The participants are satisfied with positions they hold as they have been able to help the adults to learn. Their motives for selecting job are guided by intrinsic motives such as interest, personal experience, intellectual fulfillment, and altruistic ones. The findings also indicated that they adopt different activities to develop their professional competence such as taking part in workshops, seminars, becoming members of professional community, attending ELT and applied linguistics conferences

Do appearances deceive? The curious case of CSR activities and shunned companies

AbstractOur article investigates the relationship between the corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of firms from “shunned” industries and the firms' long‐term value. Contrary to the existing research, we find that these firms' CSR activities are motivated by business or regulatory reasons, and not altruistic ones. We also document that in alcohol and tobacco industries, there is a positive relationship between the number of concerns about the firms' products and the long‐term value of these firms. Additionally, we find that some CSR activities that may, prima facie, look good could actually be exacerbating social problems. Among the “shunned” industries, the gambling industry is the only one that shows a positive relationship between firm value and diversity. The community leaders of certain ethnic groups are alarmed that the gambling industry targets groups with a higher percentage of gambling disorders.

You Are What You Eat: The Relationship between Values and Organic Food Consumption

In current times, the man-made problems affecting our planet (climate change, loss of biodiversity, etc.) are making an urgent case for shifting towards a more sustainable kind of consumption. One of the ways these problems can be addressed is to promote organic agriculture, which means boosting levels of organic food consumption. This study examines the relationship between the number of organic foods consumed and the specific values that consumers look for in foods, in order to deepen the current knowledge regarding the behaviour of the organic food consumer. To this end, data was analysed from a face-to-face survey of 776 people in Spain through bivariate analysis techniques. Results show that organic food consumers have a different pattern of values from non-consumers and a greater level of involvement with food in general. Moreover, within the group of organic consumers, the effect of values on the quantity or variety of foods consumed is not as marked, although there are differences in favour of those that consume more frequently. Lastly, the main implication of the results obtained is that, in order to increase consumption, selfish values should be connected with altruistic ones. For this reason, instilling a specific value based on the term or concept “life” is proposed.

Study of work values of Gen Z students

Today's multi-generational workforce has added workplace complexities, making it crucial for employers to manage new and older staff effectively. This article attempts to explore Gen Z student's work values and priorities while making career selections. It also attempts to understand the impressions of gender and course-type (UG/PG) on work values. A questionnaire-based survey of 264 students from vocational colleges has been administered to understand their work values and perceptions of an ideal workplace. Lyons Work Values Survey (LWVS), with 25-item revised scale was used to measure four work values namely instrumental, cognitive, altruistic and prestige. Results from analysis suggest students attach greatest importance to cognitive and instrumental work values and least importance to prestige and altruistic ones. Significant differences were observed in the work values by gender and UG/PG courses. The results of the research will help employers design workforce plans and engagement methods for higher efficiency at workplaces.

Regulation and altruism

AbstractWe study optimal contracts in a regulator–agent setting with joint production, altruistic and selfish agents, limited liability, and uneasy outcome measurement. Such a setting represents sectors of activities such as education and healthcare provision. The agents and the regulator jointly produce an outcome for which they all care to some extent that is varying from agent to agent. Some agents, the altruistic ones, care more than the regulator does while others, the selfish agents, care less. Moral hazard is present due to both the agent's effort and the joint outcome that are not contractible. Adverse selection is present too since the regulator cannot a priori distinguish between altruistic and selfish agents. Contracts consist of a simple transfer from the regulator to the agents together with the regulator's input in the joint production. We show that, under the conditions of our setting and when we face both moral hazard and adverse selection, the regulator maximizes welfare with a menu of contracts, which specify higher transfers for the altruistic agents and higher regulator's inputs for the selfish agents.

Comparative Efficiency of Altruism and Egoism as Voting Strategies in Stochastic Environment

In this paper, we study the efficiency of egoistic and altruistic strategies within the model of social dynamics determined by voting in a stochastic environment (the ViSE model) using two criteria: maximizing the average capital increment and minimizing the number of bankrupt participants. The proposals are generated stochastically; three families of the corresponding distributions are considered: normal distributions, symmetrized Pareto distributions, and Student's $t$-distributions. It is found that the "pit of losses" paradox described earlier does not occur in the case of heavy-tailed distributions. The egoistic strategy better protects agents from extinction in aggressive environments than the altruistic ones, however, the efficiency of altruism is higher in more favorable environments. A comparison of altruistic strategies with each other shows that in aggressive environments, everyone should be supported to minimize extinction, while under more favorable conditions, it is more efficient to support the weakest participants. Studying the dynamics of participants' capitals we identify situations where the two considered criteria contradict each other. At the next stage of the study, combined voting strategies and societies involving participants with selfish and altruistic strategies will be explored.

Regulation and Altruism

We study optimal contracts in a regulator-agent setting with joint production, altruistic and selfish agents, and uneasy outcome measurement. Such a setting represents sectors of activities such as education and health care provision. The agents and the regulator jointly produce an outcome for which they all care to some extent that is varying from agent to agent. Some agents, the altruistic ones, care more than the regulator does while others, the selfish agents, care less. Moral hazard is present due to the agent's effort that is not contractible. Adverse selection is present too since the regulator cannot a priori distinguish between altruistic and selfish agents. Contracts consist of a simple transfer from the regulator to the agents together with the regulator's input in the joint production. We show that a screening contract is not optimal when we face both moral hazard and adverse selection.

What’s in it for me? Self-serving versus other-oriented framing in messages advocating use of prosocial peer-to-peer services

Abstract We present a study that investigates the effectiveness of self-serving versus other-oriented motivational framing of messages designed to persuade people to sign up for a prosocial peer-to-peer (P2P) service. As part of the study, volunteer message senders were incentivized to recruit people to sign up for one of three types of prosocial P2P services. Senders were given an option of choosing one of four pre-designed invitation messages to send to their contacts, two framed for self-serving motivations and two framed for other-oriented motivations. We found that recipients were more attracted to click on messages emphasizing self-serving benefits. This may not match the expectation of senders, who generally prioritized other-oriented motives for participating in prosocial P2P services. However, after recipients clicked the messages to investigate further, effects of self versus other-framing messages depended on the nature of the service. Our findings suggest that, even for prosocial services, messages offering self-serving motivations are more effective than altruistic ones on inspiring interests. But the overall persuasive effect on conversion may be more nuanced, where the persuasion context (service type) appears to be a critical moderator.

Why Don't Trade Preferences Reflect Economic Self-Interest?

AbstractThe dominant approach to the study of international political economy assumes that the policy preferences of individuals and groups reflect economic self-interest. Recent research has called this assumption into question by suggesting that voters do not have economically self-interested preferences about trade policy. We investigate one potential explanation for this puzzling finding: economic ignorance. We show that most voters do not understand the economic consequences of protectionism. We then use experiments to study how voters would respond if they had more information about how trade barriers affect the distribution of income. We find that distributional cues generate two opposing effects: they make people more likely to express self-serving policy preferences, but they also make people more sensitive to the interests of others. In our study both reactions were evident, but selfish responses outweighed altruistic ones. Thus, if people knew more about the distributional effects of trade, the correlation between personal interests and policy preferences would tighten. By showing how the explanatory power of economic self-interest depends on beliefs about causality, this research provides a foundation for more realistic, behaviorally informed theories of international political economy.