Post-Apocalyptic Dissonance

As hard as I tried to avoid falling into the zombie craze, it didn't work. When I found out my grandfather was into The Walking Dead...I knew I had no choice but to see what the hype was all about. It happened. After just ONE WEEK of Netflix binge-watching, I am caught up to its current season and officially a die-hard Walking Dead obsessed fan. For those of you unfamiliar with The Walking Dead (and I'd assume there aren't many) is an American horror drama television series that follows a group of survivors who work together to confront an post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombies. It takes a while to get used to the gory slayings of over 100 zombies per episode but what is even more mind bending is that it does not matter if the zombie is man, woman or child, it must go because no matter what, it is a threat to the living. It's pretty disgusting...see for yourself: 

As I watch the show, I can't help but think, "What if I were in this situation?". Would I be able to brutally kill without remorse things that still looked human? But then I consider the situation. At that point, it really is life or death and the conflict and stress within due to the situation, may cause me to act just like them and kill whatever threatens their well-being. This dilemma demonstrates the how fragile we are when it comes to avoiding wrong-doing when caught in a ambiguous or stressful situations. When this occurs we also tend to take part in cruel behavior because it seems justified at the moment. In social psychology, this is called cognitive dissonance.  cognitive dissonance is induced when a person holds two contradictory beliefs, or when a belief is not congruent with an action that the person performs" (APA.org). This situation produces a feeling of discomfort and so the person seeks to reduce this discomfort by changing their behavior, changing their attitudes and beliefs or adding new thoughts. 
Viewing The Walking Dead, the survivors justify these brutal killings because they consider how the zombies are just a mass of violent, hungry, crazed, half-dead people that they no longer consider humans. The survivors quickly and unconsciously rearrange their moral beliefs to make themselves comfortable with these horrible actions. As the show evolves, viewers themselves can see the initial discomfort each survivor had when they first took the initiative of killing to protect themselves and their group. 
Hypocrisy is another case of cognitive dissonance.  In 1991, Aronson, Fried and Stone conducted an experiment to see what occurs when a person adopts the role of a safe-sex educator but does not practice it themselves. They asked sexually-active undergraduate students to prepare a short speech on the importance of safe sex. They have two groups, a high mindful and a low mindful. Mindful insinuating whether they were cautious and practiced safe sex. At the end, participants were all offered the ability to purchase condoms. Over 80% of the members in the low mindful group ended up purchasing condoms, as opposed to those in the high (30-50%). This goes to show that those in the low group experienced more of a cognitive dissonance because they weren't "practicing what they were preaching". They were more likely to purchase condoms to reduce this dissonance and hope to change their sexual behavior. 
Cognitive dissonance is practically unavoidable but there are ways to reduce the mental conflict. It helps us make valuable decisions and judgments. Many times, we do this unconsciously because we automatically seek consistency between our thoughts and behaviors. Whether it's finding the justification to kill hundreds of zombies or changing your habits, dissonance reduction is possible and very powerful. 


Ashley Portorreal 

Aronson, E., Fried, C., & Stone, J. (1991). Overcoming denial and increasing the intention to use condoms through the induction of hypocrisy. American Journal of Public Health, 81, 1636-1638.

Kelly, J. A., McAuliffe, T. L., Sikkema, K. J., Murphy, D. A., Somlai, A. M., Mulry, G., Miller, J. G., Stevenson, L. Y., & Fernandez, M. I. (1997). Reduction in risk behavior among adults with severe mental illness who learned to advocate for HIV prevention. Psychiatric Services, 48(10), 1283-1288.

Love as Demonstrated by "How I Met Your Mother"

If you have never binge watched a show until your eyes were bloodshot and swollen, well then you are missing out on a great time. If you have never binge watched “How I Met Your Mother” (HIMYM) until your eyes were bloodshot and swollen then your life is kind of in shambles. HIMYM follows Ted Mosby and his pursuit, over many years, to find a wife. The show not only details Ted’s quest for love, but it also details his friends Robin, Barney, Marshall, and Lily who all seem to find themselves in differing places in their lives, relationship wise.

Lets first dive into Marshall and Lily, the married couple who seem to have the true love that everyone else is searching for and hopefully can find it one day. Marshall and Lily consistently support and exemplify the idea of passionate love. The way they act together and compliment each other’s personalities show the intense desire that they have for being with one another. Marshall and Lily are typically the happiest of the characters, as they are relationship trouble free, which is typically seen with couples that are passionately in love. The feelings of “fulfillment and ecstasy” could easily be attributes used to describe both Marshall and Lily, which points to the conclusion that they are passionately in love. The solidifying factor of their passionate love was when (spoiler) Lily left Marshall for the summer and they were broken up. Marshall was absolutely devastated and was extremely depressed and inconsolable. Marshall also showed typical symptoms of a break up when he felt physically ill as do a majority of the “breakees” as mentioned in the chapter.

Now Barney and Robin are difficult to truly understand their emotions and feelings, but I’ll give it a whirl. Barney takes the classic evolutionary approach to mate selection, as his main mission in most every episode is to find a new girl to sleep with. Not surprising, this falls right in line with the ways in which evolutionary psychologists, thought the male species developed over the course of time. Barney, although not very picky when choosing a girl, does try to find the most girls he can possibly sleep with, which follows along the evolutionary theory of propagation and survival of the fittest. Barney also exhibits the avoidant attachment style of relationships. He rarely commits himself to a girl and even when he does it never works out due to his lack of commitment. He also has a spiteful take on love, although, as suggested by studies, this attitude and attachment style changes towards the end of the show as he starts to develop serious feelings for a certain someone.

Robin on the other hand is a lot more receptive towards love and truly wants a long-term relationship. She is quite complex to decipher but offers bits and pieces of some relationship types. Robin consistently is attracted to and begins relationships with individuals who are not similar or share similar opinions with her. Although Robin and her boyfriends at face value seemed to be similar, once they got to know each other better they eventually realized they were not similar in views and opinions, particularly with one of Robin’s main beliefs in having no children. Robin also shows certain parts of the anxious/ambivalent attachment style when she rushes into engagement with Kevin.

Have you ever had the utmost disdain or disgust with an individual and then found yourself, over time, truly enjoying or even falling for that same person? Well if so, congrats, you’re another Robin Scherbatsky. When Robin first met Barney she correctly saw him as a disgusting, womanizing, sexist guy who prided himself on his past sexual conquests. On the other hand Barney always poked fun at and saw Robin as a hater to his lifestyle and really didn’t care what she thought about him and his antics. Over time however, we saw both Robin and Barney fall for each other. This change of attitude can be best related to the Mere Exposure effect. As the two continually spent time together they casually grew more affectionate towards one another until eventually… well you know the rest.

The man, the myth, the legend, Ted Mosby is a mess. There is no nice way to put it. He has the best of intentions, but he just can’t seem to find the woman who he knows is the one. Ted truly tries to create passionate love between him and the women he dates, but whether it is a lack of similar views and opinions or the lack of attraction Ted can’t seem to find the right girl, until he does. Once he meets his future wife Ted shows the telltale signs of being in love. They have extremely similar opinions and interests and are extremely attracted to each other. Ted shows a secure attachment style in this relationship, which is a reason why it ends up working for him.

I’ll leave you with an important message from Marshall

Michael Spada

References

Welker, K. M., Baker, L., Padilla, A., Holmes, H., Aron, A., & Slatcher, R. B. (2014). Effects of self‐disclosure and responsiveness between couples on passionate love within couples. Personal Relationships, 21(4), 692-708. doi:10.1111/pere.12058

Ying, T., & Renlai, Z. (2008). The effects of mere exposure and the generation of positive affection. Psychological Science (China), 31(2), 356-362

             Yousefian Tehrani, F. (2015). Influence of secure attachment on neuroticism and relationship outcomes. Dissertation Abstracts International, 76,

Do the People of NYC have empathy for the Red Kettle Ringers?

Because of the salvation army bell-ringers and the money they collect, the salvation army is able to raise money to buy thousands of people clothes, food, shelter and social services during the holiday season, and also throughout the year. Last year in 2014, Salvation Army’s Red Kettle Campaign collected almost $136 million nationwide. After visiting NYC during the holidays, I saw many Salvation Army volunteers stand out in the cold for hours ringing bells and asking for donations. I wondered how their volunteerism helped increase the amount of money raised, and what they could do to make people want to donate to an organization that assists people in their local communities.

Since the largest amount of Red Kettle volunteers are located in New York City, I will be evaluating the amount of helping, in terms of money donated, in the NYC salvation army. There are many different factors that increase the likelihood that people donate money to the Red Kettle Volunteers, starting with the notion of altruism. Altruism is a form of prosocial behavior which involves the desire to help another person even if it comes with a cost to the helper and doesn’t give them any kind of reward in return. Altruism gives us personal gratification in the sense that it can increase our feelings of self-worth, can increase our approval from people that may be with us, and can relieve our distress. In this case, the distress could be if our friend were to donate money with us around, we may simultaneously feel some discomfort if we don’t also donate some money. Therefore altruism is beneficial here in two ways; for making the giver feel good and increase their positive mood, and for helping a charity.

In order to explain why people may donate, the empathy-altruism hypothesis is one theory. Empathy is a motivator for altruism, because when we feel empathy for another person, we want to help them. On the other hand, when we don’t have empathy for someone, we help only if the rewards outweigh the costs. Upon seeing all the volunteers standing out in the cold and asking for donations, I felt empathy towards them because the weather was extremely cold in the city. Therefore if people take the time to put themselves in the shoes of those volunteers, and try to experience their volunteerism from their eyes, that person will be much more likely to donate to the salvation army. Without empathy for the volunteers or even the homeless and starving people in New York who are in need of the Salvation Army’s support, people will then evaluate the cost and rewards to see if they should help.

This empathy-altruism hypothesis is influenced by the type of attachment style a person has, because a person’s style of attachment is based on the amount of empathy they are able to feel for others. A person with an avoidant attachment style is characterized by a suppression of attachment needs due to failed attempts to be intimate with people in the past. People with this type of attachment style may find it more difficult to engage in long-term and intimate relationships, therefore may have a more difficult time feeling empathy for others. In a study conducted at Westminster college, Prof. Richman studied the likeliness that an avoidantly attached person was willing to help others in the form of donating money. She concluded from her study that avoidantly attached people are less likely to help because of their fear of emotional closeness. Helping another includes having empathy and being close to another, even if only temporarily, which may cause that person to fear closeness. Furthermore, avoidantly attached people help less than securely attached people, when asked to donate to animal and people related charities. The correlational study tested a sample of avoidantly attached people who donated less money to human and animal related charities, but not to charities that did not include some type of emotional closeness (such as charities that help the environment). Therefore by increasing the emotional cost of helping amongst people who are avoidantly attached, decreases their amount of helping. 

In short, the red kettle campaign is a worthy cause in order to raise money to assist the homeless and the hungry, especially during the holiday season. Despite any situational factors the environment may have, if the people of NYC feel empathy for the volunteers ringing the Salvation Army bells, then they will donate to this worthy cause.

By: Maggie Strunk

Richman, Stephanie B. "Avoiding Affection, Avoiding Altruism: Why Is Avoidant Attachment Related to Less Helping?" (n.d.): n. pag. Rpt. in Personality and Individual Differences. Vol. 76. N.p.: Netherlands : Elsevier Science, 2014. 193-97. PsycInfo. Web. 28 Nov. 2015. <http://ezproxy.holycross.edu:5615/ehost/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=66df872f-dc1e-4b90-9222-11593c0ad768%40sessionmgr120&hid=128&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=2015-04217-040&db=psyh>.

Boston Bombing "Family"

On April 15, 2013, Carlos Arredondo was an attendant at the Boston Marathon. He was there with an organization called Military Friends and the Samaritan organization. Arredondo belong to these organizations following the deaths of his sons. One son was killed serving in the military, and the other committed suicide after battling depression. Arredondo was enjoying his day handing out American Flags to spectators when an explosion occurred directly across the street from him. Arredondo jump the fence and ran toward to explosion. What he was able to see through the smoke was devastating. It was among the smoke that he saw Jeff Bauman. Without thinking about the cost of his actions, Arredondo pick Bauman up, carried him to the nearest wheelchair and ran to the hospital.

            Arredondo displayed true altruism.  He was motivated to help even when the costs of help were high. According to Buhrmester, M., Fraser, W., Lanman, J., Whitehouse, H., & Swann, W. (2014), heroes of the Boston Marathon Bombing were motivated to act altruistically because of the idea of fused kinship. Fused kinship or identify fusion suggest that when the terrorist acts happen people sense a strong in-group closeness, kinship, as Americans and this motivate them to act, showing pro-social behavior  (Buhrmester, M., Fraser, W., Lanman, J., Whitehouse, H., & Swann, W.,2014).

In three studies, Buhrmester, M., Fraser, W., Lanman, J., Whitehouse, H., & Swann, W. (2014) looked at the relationship between the Boston Marathon Bombing and identity fusion. In Study 1, they tested the level of empathy toward victims of terrorism and how it affected the perceptions of psychological kinship toward United States citizens. They found that those who perceived other Americans as their “family” exhibited kin-perceptions that was associated with their empathic concerns for the victims. Arredondo said that he saw his sons in Bauman and had to help. Study 2 tested this theory by having participant complete two questionnaires a few days after the Marathon Bombings. This first questionnaire was an “attitudes about their country” questionnaire. After completing this they giving hypothetical situations and reported how they would act. This was followed by the kin-perception rating. The results of this study showed that those who had strongly fused kinship with fellow Americans perceived fellow Americans as kin. Study 3 used those who donated to the Boston One Fund. They had them explain why they supporting the victims using a computer survey. There kin-perception was derived from their responses. “The results from all three studies indicated strongly fused persons reported a willingness to go to extreme lengths to support victims (Study 1), endorsing self-sacrifice over survival to ensure the capture of the terrorists responsible for the bombings (Study 2). In a final study, strongly fused persons were particularly likely to write supportive notes and donate funds to victims (Study 3)” (Buhrmester, M., Fraser, W., Lanman, J., Whitehouse, H., & Swann, W., 2014).

Carol Arredondo was one of many people who experienced this kinship with his fellow American Jeff Bauman. In the moment where Boylston Street in Boston was covered in smoke Arredondo saw Bauman the way he saw his own sons and acted altruistically to save his live, showing this kin-perception in pro-social behavior of the in-group.  Arredondo said “Being in a situation so dramatic on Monday it came to my mind what my son and many of his comrades were going through in Iraq because so many IEDs have taken the lives of our sons and daughters overseas” (Rocheleau, M., 2013). Arredondo sense his kinship and acted as an American not as an individual further displaying identity fusion. Arredondo felt it was his responsibility to help this fellow American, even when the situation was dangerous, he believe he was at the finish line for that reason.

[Mary Perron] 

References 

Buhrmester, M., Fraser, W., Lanman, J., Whitehouse, H., & Swann, W. (2014). When Terror Hits Home: Identity Fused Americans Who Saw Boston Bombing Victims as “Family” Provided Aid.

Rocheleau, M. (2013, April 25). The story of the man in the cowboy hat who helped rescue a Marathon bombing victim. Retrieved November 23, 2015, from Boston.com

If we run at gunmen, they can't hurt us! Right?

By now I’m sure everyone is familiar with front-running presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon-turned-politician. Since Carson dropped the scalpel and picked up the microphone, his controversial opinions have proven contentious both within the GOP and throughout the presidential race at large. Recently, Carson stated that if he had been present at the Oregon shooting, he would "not just stand there and let him shoot. [He] would say, 'Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can't get us all.’"  FBI officials have since clarified that rushing a shooter is an undesirable response to a gun-involved emergency situation, so it might be best to resist the urge.

While Carson’s hypothetical response beautifully mirrors white blood cells combating a foreign bacterial cell, perhaps his biological background has led to misguided expectations of human behavior. As we’ve all learned, bystanders do not often take this kind of bravado initiative in emergency situations, regardless of their moral values. In fact, the larger the group gets, the less likely it becomes that anyone will offer help in an emergency situation. Latané and Darley’s five step process to helping in an emergency tells us that not only does an individual need to recognize an event as an emergency, but they must also know the appropriate response and assume responsibility to act.

In the case of the Oregon shooting to which Carson was referring, it is unlikely that anyone would fail to notice the situation as a dire one. However, many people don’t know the best course of action in a mass shooting scenario. Obviously, Carson’s recommendation falls short at this step, as his suggestion is not an appropriate form of assistance. Even if it were a viable choice of counter-action, it is unlikely that a large group of bystanders would reflexively think to run at the source of death and risk their lives to mitigate the impact. Bystanders often fail to react in situations that would be unlikely to cause them harm, so it is far-fetched to believe that they would voluntarily charge a shooter in such a high-risk situation.

Garcia, Weaver, Darley, and Moskowitz (2002) provide empirical evidence to support the improbability of Carson’s solution to gun violence. The researchers completed a series of studies that involved introducing others into an imaginary emergency over time while simultaneously presenting one individual with help-decisions. Participants were far less likely to exhibit helping behavior if they were cognizant of the fact that other individuals, even ones entirely incapable of helping, were present in the situation. Unfortunately for Dr. Carson and his political campaign, his solution to mass shootings is not only logistically ill-advised but also psychologically unlikely.

[Victoria Mousley]

References

Colvin, J. (2015, October 7). Ben Carson’s advice on mass shooting under scrutiny.

Garcia, M. S., Weaver, K., Darley, M. J., Moskowitz, B. G. (2002). Crowded minds: The implicit bystander effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 843-853.

Relational Aggression in the Media: It Matters, Too

In seventh grade, I watched one of the scariest and most disturbing movies that I had ever seen (or so I thought at the time) during a school-wide assembly.  The movie was "Odd Girl Out," and for anyone who has seen the movie, you can sympathize with me when I say that watching our Spy Kid's idol Alexa Vega cut her hair off was quite traumatizing.  At the time, the movie showing was meant to scare us out of bullying and show the horrible impact that it can have on it's victims.  For the purpose of this blog, however, "Odd Girl Out" provides a great example of what relational aggression is, even if it is a little overdramatic and unrealistic.  

Vanessa was on top of the world at the start of eighth grade.  She had her cool, fun, and popular best friend Stacey by her side, all the coolest clothes, and a cell phone!  She was in the "in crowd" by association, which she was perfectly fine with.  Everything was going great until the jealous and mean girl showed up (bet you could've guessed that one).  Nicky, that jealous and mean girl we all feared in middle school, essentially ousted Vanessa from the "in crowd" in order to find her in and get closer to Stacey.  How did she do that, you ask?  Well, it's as simple as this: Nicky used relational aggression.  Relational aggression is aggression that harms another person through the manipulation of relationships.  Often, relational aggression takes form through gossiping, spreading of rumors, and shunning another person (Aronson et. al, 2013).  In this clip, Nicky used her popularity status in order to ostracize and exploit Vanessa.  She manipulated Vanessa's relationship with her former BFF Stacey by talking behind Vanessa's back and diminished Vanessa's self-esteem, calling her things like "Mayor of Planet Frizz-Ball."  Nicky was a "successful" bully in that she used relational aggression to purposefully harm Vanessa and Vanessa's peer relationships, all while bolstering her own popularity status.

So, how it is that we learn to behave in aggressive ways?  According to Social Learning Theory, people learn social behaviors by observing and imitating others.  Today, the media heavily influences our behavior and the way in which we interact with others.  Research demonstrates that watching violence and aggression in the media, whether it be on TV or while playing video games, increases our aggressive behavior, thoughts and actions (Aaronson et. al, 2013).  We know that when children are exposed to violence frequently, they are more likely to exhibit violent behaviors.  But what about more covert forms of aggression like relational aggression?  Does watching acts of relational aggression, like what is portrayed in "Odd Girl Out," result in the same hostile and aggressive acts?  

To uncover this, Coyne et. al conducted an experiment during which female participants were randomly assigned to watch one of three different movie clips: one involving physical aggression, one involving relational aggression, or one involving no aggression at all.  At the conclusion of watching one of the three clips, participants completed a questionnaire and were told that the experiment was over, but there was another experiment going on next door.  A confederate of the experiment then walked in (perfect timing, right?), posing as the experimenter of the "other study" and encouraged them to join.  After complying, participants then completed timed, advanced puzzle tasks, during which the confederate shouted things like "hurry up" and "you are going to screw things up" in order to frazzle them.  They then completed a reaction time test, during which participants competed against an opponent, who was also a confederate of the study.  When the opponent had a slower reaction time, the participant was to administer a noise blast and choose the loudness level as well as the duration.  Coyne et. al found interesting results, that participants in the physical aggression condition gave significantly louder noise blasts and longer noise blasts to the opponent than those in the non-aggression condition, but that were was no difference in the level and duration of noise blast given between those in the physically aggressive and relationally aggressive conditions.  In addition, participants who viewed both the physical and relational aggression videos gave harsher evaluations of the confederate, post-experiment.  These findings are important and expands the discussion that viewing violence in the media, as  viewing overt forms of aggression, such as violence, and more covert forms such as relational aggression, contributes to more overall aggressive behaviors (Coyne et. al, 2008).  

Coyne's findings demonstrate the power that even watching relational aggression in the media can have on behavior.  Although relational aggression is not as salient to us as more violent and physical forms of aggression, we still pick up on cues and social scripts that influence our behavior.  This may also be why women are more likely to engage in more relationally aggressive acts, as our culture's social scripts tell us that women should not be physically violent (Aaronson et. al, 2008).  Instead, women are portrayed as engaging in "petty" gossiping, which is often seen as "girls just being girls."  These "petty" acts are consistently portrayed within the media, and do have a significant impact on the ways in which we behave.  If we are exposed to relational acts of aggression, even those that are not so obvious, such as when Stacey told Vanessa that the lunch table was too crowded, we pick up on those behaviors and mimic them, as explained by Social Learning Theory.  Sometimes, those can even generalize into other forms of aggression such as physical aggression, as demonstrated by Coyne's experiment.  We do not know where Nicky learned to behave in such a way in "Odd Girl Out," but research suggests that the media is a heavy contributing factor in that process.  She and all of the other bullies in the world have to learn to use relational aggression to exploit others and manipulate their relationships from somewhere.  Therefore, it is important that we pay attention to not only physical forms of aggression in the media, but also more covert forms, as they too have a significant impact on our behavior. 

References:

Aronson, Elliot, et al. Social Psychology. 8^th ed. New York: Pearson Education Limited, 2013. Print.
Coyne, S. M., et. al. (2008). The effects of viewing physical and relational aggression in the media: Evidence 
for a cross-over effect. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(6), 1551-1554. 

Emily Smith

A Heart of Gold; Helping Others

On Friday, I went to the Blaire House to spend time with Alzheimer’s and dementia patients.  This is my SPUD site; I play games, sing in prayer services, and interact with the residents of the Blaire House.  My parents called me that night, and asked why I would choose to spend time with these people, rather than playing with energetic and animated children.  I answered that I loved spending time with the residents because I loved seeing their smiles, and my mother told me that I have a heart of gold.  She made me wonder, did I really volunteer for altruistic reasons, or did I help because I wanted praise or recognition?

With over 1,000 other Holy Cross students volunteering in SPUD, I wonder why we all help others. At Holy Cross, we have a saying, “men and women for and with others.”  Do we help people, whether it is volunteering in SPUD or lending a classmate notes, because we have pure hearts of gold?  Or do we only seek to help others in order to receive a reward such as recognition or praise?  We fall victim to the fundamental attribution error, occurring because we underestimate the situational factors that contribute to helping behaviors and instead assuming altruistic acts are a result of one’s personality.  We automatically attribute altruism to people’s personalities, but in reality, helping behaviors can be caused by something else entirely. The reason we help others isn’t necessarily because we are good and altruistic human beings, nor because we seek to be rewarded. The answer could be simply because we have some spare time.

Darley and Batson demonstrated that extra time significantly impacts helping behaviors in their classic experiment. Seminary students were told to walk across campus in order to give speeches on either jobs of seminary students or the parable of the Good Samaritan.  The researchers controlled how much or little time the students had to walk across campus, in which some students were told to hurry because they were late and others were told that they were in no rush at all.  There was a confederate slumped in a doorway along the path that the students had to pass.  Darley and Batson (1973) found that 63% of students who were not in a rush stopped to help the confederate, whereas only 10% who were in a rush stopped to help.  Additionally, the topic of the speeches had no impact on the results, suggesting that priming had no impact on noticing an event in which help is needed. This study supports the argument that personality traits do not necessarily drive helping behaviors, but rather situational factors, such as the amount of time we have, impact whether we help or not.

Over one third of the students at Holy Cross volunteer in SPUD, tutoring young children, working in soup kitchens, and spending time with the elderly.  Our propensity to help, perhaps, is simply because we have some free time on Fridays to volunteer.  Maybe we volunteer because we want to be rewarded for our seemingly altruistic actions, or maybe we truly do have hearts of gold.  Next time you see someone helping others, avoid the fundamental attribution error and think about the situational factors that contribute to their helping behavior.  Maybe if we all slowed down for a few hours each week, ignoring our busy schedules for a while, we would all be more inclined to help others by volunteering in SPUD or offering to lend some notes to a struggling classmate.

[By Brittney Pond]

References:

Beardman, Stephanie, "Altruism and the Experimental Data on Helping Behavior." Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 15.4, 547-561. ( http://search.proquest.com/docview/1030334865/2E0704D7E9C44879PQ/1?accountid=11456 )