Helping behavior
Since natural selection screens out species without abilities to adapt to the challenging environment, preservation of good traits and superior genes are important for survival of future generations (i.e. inclusive fitness).
[3] Kin selection refers to an inheritable tendency to perform behaviors that may favor the chance of survival of people with a similar genetic base.
[4] W. D. Hamilton proposed a mathematical expression for the kin selection: "where B is the benefit to the recipient, C is the cost to the altruist (both measured as the number of offspring gained or lost) and r is the coefficient of relationship (i.e. the probability that they share the same gene by descent).
The result also shows gender difference in kin selection: men are more affected by cues suggesting a similar genetic base than women.
As Peter Singer[7] notes, “reciprocity is found amongst all social mammals with long memories who live in stable communities and recognize each other as individuals.” Individuals should identify cheaters (those who do not reciprocate help) who lose the benefit of help from them in the future, as seen, for example, in blood-sharing by vampire bats.
[8] Economic trade and business[9] may be fostered by reciprocal altruism in which products given and received involve different exchanges.
A pattern of frequent giving and receiving of help among workers boosts both productivity and social standing.
However, once the negative mood was relieved by receiving praise, subjects no longer had high motivation to help.
A second study found that people who anticipate positive events (in this case, listening to a comedy tape), show low helping motivation since they are expecting their negative emotions to be lifted up by the upcoming stimulation.
[13] Daniel Batson's Empathy-altruism hypothesis[14] asserts that the decision of whether to help or not is primarily influenced by the presence of empathy towards the person in need, and secondarily by factors like the potential costs and rewards (social exchange concerns).
The results indicated that the high-empathy group (instructed to vividly imagine Janet's emotions) volunteered to spend more time with her, regardless of whether their help remained anonymous[clarification needed].
