Gender & Altruism Assessing the Term Paper

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While it was not found that there are significant differences in one's gender and his/her altruistic behavior, it is important to note that the respondents' responses demonstrated that it is not empathy that is the main criterion that one uses in determining one's propensity to become altruistic towards others, but rather, more about feeling "at one with the other" (that is, the other person) (Cialdini et. al., 1997:483).

The feeling of being "at one with the other" is an important concept that must be taken into consideration in understanding altruism. What the findings showed is that altruism is best assessed not by the degree of help that one gives to the other, nor the feeling of empathy that is generated from the situation or scenario presented. The concept of oneness is found to be significant with the assessment of altruistic behavior (Maner et. al., 2002:1605). In the scenarios mentioned earlier, which yielded the highest and lowest mean score responses from both male and female respondents, the feeling of "oneness" is evident in the car scenarios, since all respondents felt positively and negatively for the "jumpstart" and "flat tire" scenarios, respectively.

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However, the explanation provided about the "jumpstart" scenario as being relatively 'safer' and within the comfort zone of the respondent than the "flat tire" scenario, important insights are still needed in order to best assess the reason why these scenarios are responded to positively and (relatively) negatively. Moreover, exploring into the concept of oneness as the main determinant of altruistic behavior will provide the researcher a better insight into understanding how, through the concept of oneness, altruistic behavior is determined and differentiated between males and females.

It is only by clearly conceptualizing and operationalizing terms relevant to the study of altruism that a better measure of assessing altruism, as well as determining the significance of the relationship between gender and altruistic behavior, can be developed. Unless a clearer definition of altruism can be generated, attempts to study the relationship between the variables gender and altruistic behavior will remain unreliable, specifically on theoretical, conceptual, and operational levels......

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