Helping Others: A Evolutionary Psychology Perspective

Dr. Sally Faedda, General Manager of instinct and reason completed her Phd investigating the motivations for helping others, including the theoretical paradox (in evolutionary terms) of helping elderly parents. The insights drawn from this work extend beyond academia to our dealings with all people in many different situations in life - friends, strangers, acquaintences, business associates and partnerships…

All creeds dictate we should help those in need, but beyond this religious ethos we are all too familiar with the broader social norm that dictates that we should ‘love our neighbour.’ Norms prescribe how we ought to behave toward others and if we violate those norms we risk losing social standing and reputation, or simply face public embarrassment.  Society has a way of making us feel enormously guilty if we walk away from our social obligation to be ‘nice’. 

After all we are a social species.  We help people because it is human nature to care about others and their wellbeing.  Human beings are social animals; we show empathy, care and concern for others who are in pain and hurting; we form communities; show strong bonds to family and friendships.  We are taught from a very early age that we should love, share and be selfless not selfish. The fact that children learn the ways of cooperation at a very early age suggests these behavioural rules have an evolutionary past.

Human beings’ capacity for sociality and cooperation is one of the primary evolutionary strategies ever developed. Our gregariousness can be interpreted on a genetic and mathematical basis alongside its counterparts, selfishness, competitiveness and aggression. Both of those opposing forces, group cooperation and individual selfishness, delicately exist in parallel. 

Immediate evolutionary struggles tend to be won by putting individual selfishness ahead of sacrifice as we are in nature ‘red in tooth and claw’. We can all probably recall a situation where we would have been better off cheating than cooperating because cheating would have given us a higher pay-off.  While failure to help is not necessarily cheating we have learnt that sociality in the long run is a better evolutionary strategy. 

This idea was formalised by game theorists’ examining the evolution of cooperation (i.e. Prisoner’s Dilemma), which has showed that cheating has a better payoff than cooperation in single interaction situations, but not in multi-interaction situations that typify human environments. Cosmides (1989) and Cosmides and Tooby (1992) go so far to argue that humans have developed a domain-specific cheater detection module, that enhances our ability to monitor those who have cheated us in the past.  Consistent with this idea, past research has shown that cheaters are more readily recognised than cooperators.

The point is that cooperators will do better than non-cooperators within a group. Such social bonds need to be reinforced by powerful mechanisms that help keep our selfishness in check - our complex emotional system is an example of such a mechanism. So cheating, or unfairly treating someone, arouses moral anger and a hostility towards the defector. Cheaters are punished and cooperators encouraged.

Trivers (1985) explained the careful balance between individuals regulating their own altruistic and cheating tendencies and their responses to these in others, by proposing the selection for a complex emotional regulatory system. As Trivers explained, the system should allow one to protect themselves from cheaters, gain benefits from reciprocal altruistic exchanges, and only cheat when it is adaptive.  He argued there are several factors that formed part of that selected emotional system, and one of those factors, was a sense of justice.

A sense of justice is a common standard by which individuals can judge themselves and others as acting fairly. This is aligned to the early 70’s social psychologists’ rules for distributive justice.  The duty to help one another in need, providing this can be done without any real loss or risk to the individual, is what Rawls (1971) describes as being driven simply by a sense of another’s good intentions rather than an expectation of payback.  So not all exchanges of resources are driven by pure economic reasoning.  Individuals’ needs fluctuate over a lifetime and to help based on the principle that one ‘needs’ help, is one way to sustain a cooperative species. Therefore it could be said that to help the needy is the default setting of being a prosocial species.

The strong normative expectation that dictates we should help our elderly parents is a largely unrecognised evolutionary puzzle. Why do we invest so heavily in our parents when they are long past their reproductive years?  Adult children looking after their own offspring often face a double burden of care, and choosing to help aging parents is often in conflict with the primary evolutionary task of parenthood -  your own genetic posterity by ensuring your children become parents themselves.  Despite the large altruism literature, no one has yet addressed this particular issue. This study investigated this theoretical paradox and adds to the sparse empirical work on kin and nonkin-directed altruism.  

As a test of the two most popular Inclusive Fitness evolutionary explanations of altruistic behaviours; Kin Selection (Hamilton, 1964) and Reciprocal Altruism (Trivers, 1971), this study takes a side-wise look at helping attitudes and behaviours across multiple types of relationships.

Research Approach

A Choice Model experiment assessed 453 people from all Australian states stratified by age (145 16-24 year olds; 162 25-54 year olds, and 146 over 55 year olds).
Participants responded to sixteen hypothetical situations where they could choose to help only one person from two persons requiring their help. The scenarios contained ten variables (relationship type; sex, type of help; history of reciprocation etc.) that were systematically varied. Data was analysed using Hierarchical Bayesian estimation methods, and after factoring out our general tendency toward a species-wide cooperation, found broad support for Inclusive Fitness principles.

Broad Results

The pattern of results show the clear primacy of need when all else is equal. This demonstrates the cooperative nature of our species and the benefits that we derive through a mutual prosociality.

At the next level of analysis, we see the primacy of close kin, and we help them irrespective of reciprocity, as Kin Selection is its own reward. Our preference then is to help close kin who are most able to return the favour, but this expectation is clearly at the margin. This finding supports the unassailable Hamiltonian logic of genetic interdependency.

At the second-order level of analysis, we see interesting departures from mainstream theorisation.

First, kin-directed altruism stops at immediate kin, which means we are no more likely to help distant kin than close, but unrelated friends.

Second, in a response to novel environments, we treat friends as surrogate extended kin.

Third, reciprocity would seem to govern these new relationships and those of more distant kin.

While most of the hypotheses were confirmed in line with general evolutionary theorising some of the more interesting results demonstrate the fast pace of our social evolution.

In line with the idea that the value and practice of filial piety in industrialised nations is gradually changing due to social and demographic changes, the results of this thesis are most likely explained in novel environment terms.

Therefore it is likely that for Generation Two (adult child), who are focussed on their nuclear family, particularly their own offspring beyond any other relationship level, their decisions to help their parents should be underpinned by the same drivers as for more distant kin and friends (need and reciprocity). We help elderly parents as they are needy and this is unequivocal. However, if all else is equal we expect payback. For example, if a Generation Three (child) was present the probability of helping an elderly parent substantially increases - a clear inference that Generation Two is looking for rewards – cooperation, Kin Selection and reciprocity at work – a not unexpected finding. Nevertheless, the research provided interesting insights into the nature of extended family dynamics as a sequelae.

For more information or a discussion of these issues contact Dr. Sally Faedda.