Goal
The goal of this exercise is to explore some of the factors that may influence altruistic behavior. Crosstabulation will be used.
Concept
Prosocial behavior is a term used by social psychologists to refer to a broad category of actions that are considered to be beneficial to others and to have positive social consequences. One type of prosocial behavior is altruism--helping that is intended to provide aid to someone else with no expectations of getting something in return.
Empathy--an other-oriented feeling of compassion, tenderness, sympathy, pleasure or pain--has been linked to altruism, and studies show that empathic concern for a person in need tends to promote altruistic helping.
But helping and altruism may also be influenced by cultural norms, such as the social responsibility norm, which states that individuals should help people who are dependent on them, or the reciprocity norm, according to which people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them.
Examples of possible research questions about altruism include:
This exercise will use the General Social Surveys, 1972-2006 [Cumulative File].
The General Social Survey (GSS) is one of the longest running surveys of social, political and cultural conditions in American society. Since its inception in 1972 it has been monitoring social change and tracking trends in attitudes, behaviors and attributes of the United States adult population. A nationally representative personal interview survey of the United States adult population, it collects data on a wide range of topics: behavioral items such as group membership and participation; personal psychological evaluations including measures of well-being, misanthropy, and life satisfaction; attitudinal questions on such public issues as crime and punishment, race relations, gender roles, and spending priorities; and demographic characteristics of respondents and their parents. The survey is currently administered biennially. The GSS contains a core of demographic and attitudinal questions, many of which have remained unchanged to facilitate time trend studies. The survey also contains topical modules about topics of special interest. The cumulative dataset merges all previous years of the GSS into a single file, with each year or survey constituting a subfile. Data for this exercise came from the 2004 topical module on altruism.
This exercise will use the following variables:
In this exercise we will explore some of the factors that may influence altruistic behavior, using frequency tables and crosstabulation.
Altruism will be measured using two variables: VOLCHRTY, which asks respondents how often they
have done volunteer work for a charity in the past year; and GIVHMLESS, which asks them how often
they have given food or money to a homeless person in the past year. Each variable contains 6
categories: "More than once a week" (1), "Once a week" (2), "Once a month" (3), "At least two or
three times in the past year" (4), "Once in the past year" (5), and "Not at all in the past year"
(6). We recoded the variables to exclude those who responded "Don't know" or did not answer. We also
collapsed the categories from 6 to 4 and reversed the coding so that higher numbers meant higher
levels of altruism (3="Once a week or more" 2="Once a month" 1="One to three times per year" and
0="Not at all in the past year"). We named the new variables
Altruism and Empathy
Empathy is measured by the variable EMPATHY1: "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me." Responses are coded on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 denotes low empathy for people less fortunate, and 5 denotes high empathy. We recoded the variable to exclude those who said "don't know" or refused to answer, and collapsed the variable into 3 categories: 1="low empathy," 2="medium empathy" and 3="high empathy". The new variable is called "EMPATHY."
Examine the frequency distribution of
Run a crosstab of
Next run a crosstab of
Altruism and the Social Responsibility Norm
We will use the variable OTHSHELP (People should be willing to help others who are less fortunate) to measure the social responsibility norm. Answers to this question are coded using a 5-point Likert scale (1="strongly agree" to 5="strongly disagree"). We recoded the variable to exclude those who said "don't know" or refused to answer, and collapsed the variable into 3 categories: 1="agree," 2="neither agree nor disagree" and 3="disagree". We named the new variable "DUTYHELP."
Looking at the frequency distribution of
Turning once again to the measures of altruism, run crosstabs of
Do these patterns hold when looking at whether and how much respondents helped the homeless? Of the three categories in DUTYHELP, which group is most likely to help the homeless most often? Which group is the most likely to say that they have not helped the homeless at all in the past year?
Think about your answers to the application questions before you click through the interpretation guide for help in answering them.
Altruism and Empathy
Altruism and the Social Responsibility Norm
Interpretation
Things to think about in interpreting the results:
It is important to look at the amount of missing data in each relationship and think about the ways in which that might affect the generalizability of the results -- some crosstabulation tables have relatively little missing data, others have a great deal. In general, results from this dataset should be fairly representative of the general population because it is a national probability sample.
Reading the results: The numbers in each cell of the crosstabulation tables show the percent of the people who fall into the overlapping categories, followed by the actual number of people that represents this sample. The coloring in the tables demonstrates how the observed numbers in each cell compares to the expected number if there were no association between the two variables. The accompanying bar charts display the patterns visually as well.
Weights (mathematical formulas) are often used to adjust the sample proportions, usually by race, sex, or age, to more closely match those of the general population. The analyses used in this guide did not use any weights, which may reduce the generalizability of the findings, but the resulting tables are accurate descriptions of the relationships found between these variables among these respondents.
The use of column percentages, as shown in these tables, allows for the comparison of answers to the "outcome" of interest across values of the grouping variable. For example, on average 11.1% of respondents volunteer weekly for a charity, but among the medium empathy group the percentage of people who volunteer on a weekly basis is only 7.5%.
The analyses show the following:
Almost three quarters of respondents (74.3%) report high levels of empathy for the less fortunate.
Of those in the high empathy group, 12.2% say that they do volunteer work weekly for a charity, compared to 8.2% of those in the low empathy group. There are a greater percentage of respondents in the latter group who have not volunteered at all in the past year: 26.6% vs. 19.4% of those in the high empathy group.
An equal percentage (7.3%) of respondents in both the high and low empathy groups give food or money to the homeless on a weekly basis, but 43.8% of those in the low empathy group have not helped the homeless at all in the past year, compared to 32.6% of those in the high empathy group. The numbers for the medium empathy group show that they are the least likely to give food or money to the homeless.
When asked whether people should help those less fortunate, 89.8% of respondents agree.
People who agree with the social responsibility norm are almost three times as likely as those who don't to do volunteer work on a weekly basis (11.7% vs. 4.3%), while those who disagree are twice as likely (39.1% vs. 20%) to do no volunteering at all.
The same pattern holds when looking at help for the homeless. With 7.1% versus 4.3%, those who feel a higher social responsibility are more likely to give food or money to the homeless than those who do not feel such responsibility. On the other hand, those who do not feel such responsibility are more likely to give no help at all compared to the respondents who feel compelled to help (47.8% vs. 34.1%). The group that is neutral toward the social responsibility norm appears the least likely to help at any level.
Summary
The goal of this exercise was to explore the possible influence of factors such as empathy and the social responsibility norm on altruistic behavior. Taken together the results show that although three quarters of respondents describe themselves as highly empathetic, and 90% feel a responsibility to help those less fortunate, only 6-11% do volunteer work for a charity or give food/money to the homeless on a weekly basis, and 20-35% have not volunteered or provided help to the homeless at all in the past year. High self-reported empathy appears to make little to no difference in altruistic behavior compared to low self-reported empathy, though the difference becomes greater when looking at low levels of altruism. However, people who feel a high sense of social responsibility are 2-3 times more likely than those who do not to demonstrate frequent (once a week or more) altruism. Interestingly it is the people who describe themselves as being moderately empathetic or moderately influenced by the idea that they should help less fortunate others who tend to be least likely to help at any level.