Presence of Others

Presence Of Others

The presence of others has long been known to have an effect on people’s decisions to engage in more helping behavior, but relatively few studies have examined the interaction between the observation of the helping act and various personality traits of the altruist person. In the present study, people were asked to volunteer by offering a less and a more costly charity service in public and under anonymous conditions. It is a well know fact that prosocial personality traits show relative independence of situational factors. I did some research and found the scores on the scale of machiavellianism, in contrast, prove to be strongly dependent on the presence of others, but not on the cost of the offered charity act. Those obtaining high scores on this scale disguised their selfishness and pretended altruism in the presence of others, but realized their self-interest when others were not observing their behavior. It is easy to cover up who you really are. This responsiveness to the strategic distinction between the presence and absence of others is discussed in terms of reputation gaining and competitive altruism. The best example I can give of this would be giving to a charity and helping out the needy/poor. Who doesn’t feel sorry for a homeless family? It takes time and money to take care of them even if it is just volunteering at the soup kitchen. I personally have asked them what they need and went in the store and bought it for them. I did this to avoid giving them money they could just pocket or buy drugs with. We all have different personalities and some of us are more willing to help others.