Someone elses suffering, the cure for selfishness? A study about the pure altruism

• Grant number: 11/19852-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2012
• End date: November 30, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Experimental Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Vera Silvia Raad Bussab
• Grantee: Marcel Henrique Bertonzzin
• Host Institution: Instituto de Psicologia (IP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The living beings make choices about how to spend their limited efforts (resources, energy, and time). According to the Future Discount Theory of Daly and Wilson (2001), organisms discount the future when they value immediate resources instead of future resources. This definition can be analyzed from the perspective of the Social Discount, a concept introduced by Rachlin and Ranieri (1992), referring to the subjective evaluation of a reward when it must be shared with others. The trade-offs about resource allocation and decisions faced by individuals involve three different levels: immediate consumption of resources by the own individual; the consumption of these resources by the individual somewhere in the future and the consumption by other people (social discount) (Simon, 1995). This third dimension relates to the theme of reciprocal altruism: a behavior that will occur if the benefit for who is benefited is significantly greater than the costs of the act to the altruist in terms of the probability of genes being passed forward (Trivers, 1971), since the sharing of resources depends on the "social distance" (Simon, 1995), however, it's still unclear the factors that contribute to "pure altruism". In this study we seek to investigate the factors that interfere in social discount decision-making, looking through economic variables, inter-relationships models (attachment styles), sex, etc, trying to better understand the altruistic behaviors, in situations where there is a conflict between self-interests and need of others. We're trying to understand especially those behaviors that do not present a real probability of obtaining some benefit in the future (pure altruism). To reach that will be utilized several tests in the paper, trying to get data about subjects' childhood and present socio-economic situation, their patterns of social discount, and attachment style. An instability stimulus will be used (as a newspaper report) trying to evoke an empathic response from the subject in relation to an individual socially distant.(AU)