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Related Concept Videos

Altruism01:03

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Altruistic behaviors are “unselfish” behaviors—those that help another individual at the expense of the individual carrying out the behavior. Despite the negative consequences for the altruistic animal, these behaviors are thought to have evolved for several reasons.
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Egoism and Altruism01:55

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Voluntary behavior with the intent to help other people is called prosocial behavior. Why do people help other people? Is personal benefit such as feeling good about oneself the only reason people help one another?
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Some researchers suggest that altruism operates on empathy. Empathy is the capacity to understand another person’s perspective, to feel what he or she feels. An empathetic person makes an emotional connection with others and feels compelled to help (Batson, 1991). Empathy can be expressed in several ways, including cognitive, affective, and motor. 
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Inclusive Fitness00:57

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Most altruistic behavior—in which one animal helps another at a cost to themselves—occurs between relatives. Scientists think these altruistic behaviors evolved because they increase the inclusive fitness of the animal providing help.
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The discussion of bullying highlights the problem of witnesses not intervening to help a victim. This is a common occurrence, as the following well-publicized event demonstrates. In 1964, in Queens, New York, a 19-year-old woman named Kitty Genovese was attacked by a person with a knife near the back entrance to her apartment building and again in the hallway inside her apartment building. When the attack occurred, she screamed for help numerous times and eventually died from her stab wounds.
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Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development01:14

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The sensorimotor stage, the initial phase of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, spans the first two years of a child's life. During this period, infants actively engage with their surroundings, building cognitive awareness through direct interaction with the world. This interaction is primarily based on sensory perception and motor actions, allowing infants to gradually understand basic physical properties and predict how objects interact within their environment.
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 5, 2025

A Novel Experimental and Analytical Approach to the Multimodal Neural Decoding of Intent During Social Interaction in Freely-behaving Human Infants
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Altruistic responses to the most vulnerable involve sensorimotor processes.

Brian D Vickers1, Rachael D Seidler1,2, R Brent Stansfield3

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States.

Frontiers in Psychiatry
|March 27, 2023
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Human altruism, or costly helping, is linked to motor preparation. Helping vulnerable neonates with immediate needs activated motor-preparatory brain regions, suggesting action processes drive helping behavior.

Keywords:
altruismcaregivingdonationempathygivingmotor

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Social Psychology
  • Evolutionary Biology

Background:

  • Empathy is a known motivator for altruism.
  • The role of the motor system in human altruism is under-explored.
  • Altruism may have evolved from active, physical responses to others in need.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the contribution of motor preparatory responses to costly helping.
  • To examine how different helping scenarios influence motor system activation.

Main Methods:

  • Contrasted three charity conditions based on the Altruistic Response Model.
  • Conditions varied in recipient (neonates vs. adults), support type (immediate vs. preparatory), and aid nature (heroic vs. nurturant).
  • Measured brain activation in motor-preparatory regions using BOLD signal and gray matter volume.

Main Results:

  • Participants donated most to charities aiding neonates with immediate, nurturant support.
  • This donation pattern correlated with increased BOLD signal and gray matter volume in motor-preparatory regions.
  • Motor-preparatory regions were identified via an independent motor retrieval task.

Conclusions:

  • Findings support an evolutionary, caregiving-based theory of altruism.
  • Motor preparatory processes, not just passive emotions, are crucial for helping.
  • Action processes evolved to protect vulnerable group members.