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Essay on Adult Altruism
The existing literature indicates links between aspects of social network functioning and health outcomes. It is generally believed that networks that are larger or provide greater instrumental and emotional support contribute to improved health and, perhaps, greater longevity. Recently, it has been suggested that giving as well as receiving social support may be of benefit.
On the basis of evolutionary theories of emotion and altruism, the current study sought to test this thesis in a large, ethnically diverse sample of community-dwelling older adults. As expected, levels of social support given were associated with lower morbidity, whereas levels of receiving were not.
It is important that these relations held even when (a) socioeconomic status, education, marital status, age, gender, ethnicity, and (b) absolute network size and activity limitation were controlled for. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for theory regarding the relations among social exchanges, giving, and later life adaptation among older adults.
Altruism is either a practice or habit (in the view of many, a virtue) as well as an ethical doctrine. In Buddhism it can also be seen as a fundamental property of (human) nature.
Altruism can refer to:
• being helpful to other people with little or no interest in being rewarded for one's efforts (the colloquial definition). This is distinct from merely helping others.
• actions that benefit others with a net detrimental or neutral effect on the actor, regardless of the actor's own psychology, motivation, or the cause of her actions. This type of altruistic behavior is referred to in ecology as Commensalism.
• an ethical doctrine that holds that individuals have a moral obligation to help others, if necessary to the exclusion of one's own interest or benefit. One who holds such a doctrine is known as an "altruist."
The concepts have a long history in philosophical and ethical thought, and have more recently become a topic for psychologists, sociologists.................
