Yes, psychologists, altruism does exist

You’re out with a group of friends, and someone makes the mistake of using the word ‘altruism’ in a sentence. Suddenly, with cat-like reflexes, the psychologist of the group perks up, as if their sole purpose in life is to seize this teaching moment: “Ha!” they scoff, “You do realise that altruism doesn’t exist, right?” Off they go, on a prescribed speech about how you-can-never-truly-be-altruistic-because-there-are-always-personal-rewards-when-helping-others. They speak as though everyone is clinging onto their every word and take a metaphorical bow as they bestow this fascinating insight into human behaviour.

So, are they right? Well, no.

Of course, it’s true that people may not always act charitably for the right reasons. Someone may help out a friend because they want the kudos for it, they might donate money to charity so they feel good about themselves, or pour a bucket of ice water over their head because they want everyone to think they’re awesome. Psychological research has shown that we’re often motivated to help others for our own selfish reasons too. In 1969, Irving Pilivian found that people were more willing to help someone that had collapsed on a train when doing so would improve their social image and make them feel less guilty or uncomfortable¹. As a result of this, the anti-altruists seem to have all the fuel they need to claim that we simply cannot help others for free; there’s always some benefit for ourselves when we help someone else.

Arguing that humans do not always act charitably is one thing, but asserting that no one can ever do something that benefits a person over themselves is quite another. The first problem with this argument is the assumption that altruism is the sole product of implicit motivations. The truth is, we’re always going to have implicit motivations (to eat, to drink, to sleep, to affiliate, to fit in. etc.) but we can’t ignore the higher-order personalities they give rise to. If we fixate solely on these, we deny people the opportunity to have their behaviour explained by anything else. This is a slippery slope. It’s a bit like saying “I hosted a dinner party for my friends last night because I was hungry”. Yes, I’m sure you were, but I rather think you’ve missed the point.

There are implicit motivations for any type of behaviour; even anti-social behaviour. If I punched someone in the face, you could argue that there were some implicit motivations behind this (to gain power and dominance over others) but you would hardly say that, because of them, I wasn’t genuinely being anti-social. That would be crazy. If you reason that a person cannot genuinely be altruistic because there are implicit drives behind their behaviour then, by definition, you must also reason that no one can genuinely be outgoing, friendly, or have a personality.

Another problem is that the alleged benefits of helping others often don’t exist until after we’ve given help. If you’re unfortunate enough to witness a car accident, the chances are that you’d leap out of your car immediately to check the drivers are OK. You wouldn’t wait around drafting your bravery award speech, you’d just act. So, we’re motivated by a pure desire to help others. Sure, there may be some rewards that follow, but these have not driven our prosocial behaviour. Altruistic acts are not limited to those that provide us with intrinsic rewards.

As long as the social biases for helping exist (feeling good, improving our image), people will always be sceptical about whether altruism exists. Fortunately, though, we have a way of getting rid of them, and we can turn to developmental psychology research to find out more. The reason this is important is because young children don’t have the same understanding of civil compliance or social approval that adults do, so if they can be altruistic without these biases, it would surely undermine the anti-altruist position.

Well, they can. Check out this heart-warming clip from a study by Warneken & Tomasello in 2006: 

When the child sees the adult needs help, they get up and hobble over without any social prompting or expectation of reward. Adorable, but perhaps you’re not convinced. After all, any interpretation of behaviour is subjective, and perhaps children may still have been conditioned to act pro-socially. Well, no matter, because research has also found that children recognise altruism as a real thing too. In Just Babies, Paul Bloom discusses a wide range of research which shows that children seem to have an in-built understanding of morality; even before they can speak, kids show a preference for pro-social beings, and find the presence of anti-social beings unusual². It seems that, even from a young age, we naturally gravitate towards pro-social behaviour and, rather than altruism being something that is learnt, it is something that is hard-wired into us.

As we grow older, we all vary in how altruistic we can be. Some people may act charitably for the wrong reasons (to manipulate and gain rewards themselves) and some may to do so for the right reasons (because they genuinely care for others). Psychologists have identified a way of discriminating between these by looking at the difference between the personality factors of Agreeableness (how well we get on with others) and Humility (how genuine our relationships with others are)³. These are two very different things. This confirms our first point that some people may not act charitably for the right reasons, but also reveals that some people do, and we can measure just how altruistic each individual is.

Hopefully, I’ve made you more open minded about whether altruism exists. So, the next time a psychologist tries to tell you it doesn’t, feel free put them right. Pointing out they're wrong may benefit you, but shutting them up will benefit us all. 

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1 Piliavin, I. M., Rodin, J., & Piliavin, J. A. (1969). Good samaritanism: an underground phenomenon? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13(4), 289. ^
2 Hamlin, J. K., Wynn, K. & Bloom, P. (2007). Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Nature, 450, p557-559. ^
3 Lee, K., & Ashton, M. C. (2004). Psychometric properties of the HEXACO Personality Inventory. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 39(2), 329-358. ^