ALTRUISM

AMARKANTAK M.P.
TOPIC - ALTRUISM
SUBMITTED BY – PRADDUM KUMAR NAMDEV
17140007
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CONTENTS
 What is Altruism?
 History of Altruism
 Theory of Altruism
I. kin selection
II. ReciprocalAltruism
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What is Altruism ?
• Helping behaviour existing between social
animals.
• Increases the fitness of other animal by
sacrificing the fitness of their own.
• Animals refers to an individual acting in a
way that will decrease its own survival
chances, but improve the survival chances
of another individual.
• When one person helps another person for
no reward, and even at some cost to
oneself.
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History of Altruism
• The French philosopher named August Comte
coined the word Altruism as altruisme He
derived it from Italian word altrui, which in turn
derived from Latin word alteri which means
“other people” or somebody else.
• However all human kind has been
demonstrating altruism since the world’s
beginning.
• Altruism is studied today by anthropologists,
political scientists, economists, biologists,
theologians, psychologists and more.
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Arguments
 Some believe that altruism is human nature,
while others disagree.
 Some believe that Altruism is hereditary,
while others disagree.
 Some scientists believe that each animals
purposely show Altruism in their behaviours.
 Many believe that all human beings are self
interested. In other words, even someone
helps another, they are doing it for their own
beneficial purpose and essentially for the
wrong reasons.
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Who demonstrate Altruistic behaviour ?
 Immediately, when thinking about Altruism,
we of famous person such as Martin Luther
king , Mother teresa and even celebrities who
are doing good around the world.
 Fact of the matter is however, that you do not
need money to be Altruistic.You simply need
to sacrifice your time.
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AltruisticAnimals
• Vampire bats will regurgitate and feed
blood that they have collected from their
prey to hungry conspecific(Wilkinson
,1990)
• Ground squirrels will warn others of the
presence of predator, even though making
such a call may draw the attention of the
predator to itself(Sherman,1977)
• In many species of social insects ,
workers forgo reproduction entirely (they
are sterile) 9

Theories of Altruism
I. KIN SELECTION (proposed by- Hamilton1964)
 closely related individuals are more likely to be
benefitted from Altruistic behaviour than distantly
related one.
e.g. Helping behaviour in nest of white-fronted birds
on Kenya
• these birds live in extended multi generational
family group of 3-17 birds.
• Interaction among members of the family follow the
prediction of theory closely.
• Siblings helps each other but cousins are unlikely to
be helped, and are treated like non-relatives. 11

Contd...
 By helping relatives to reproduce (even at the cost to
your own reproductive success) then your shared
genes will spread.Assisting a close relative thereby
increases one’s ‘inclusive fitness’.
 Using mathematical modelling, Hamilton showed
that altruistic gene can spread through the
population if it causes an individual to help a relative,
whenever the cost to individual is offset by the
reproductive benefit gained by the receiver.
 Hamilton Rule = rB> c
 Where r= coefficient of relatedness.
 B= benefit to the recipient
 c= cost to the giver
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Kin selection in action
 Ground squirrel do not give an alarm clock every
time the predator approaches.They only do so when
there is large proportion of their relatives within
earshot.(Sherman, 1977)
 Vampire bats are much likely to share their food with
relatives than with non relatives (Wilkinson,1990)
 This theory explains the most puzzeling
phenomenon- that of the sterile insects-by a genetic
quirk they are more related to their sisters- than to
their mothers or daughters. (Trivers & Hare 1976)
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Kin selection experiment
 A very interesting experiment was demonstrated
in 20o2regarding kin selection by asking
participants to maintain painful position.The
longer they held the position the more money
they would earn.
 In different conditions participants could earn
money for individuals differing in relatedness.
 Themselves
 Parents or siblings
 Grandparents / niece / nephew, a cousin
 Unrelated friend
 The duration of maintaining painful position
varied a direct proportion of relatedness, with
more pain being sustained for closer relatives 14

Problems for kin selection
 Kin selection does not explain observed
incidences of animals helping non relatives e.g.
Unrelated chimpanzees come to one another ‘s
aid when threatened.
 Human often engage in apparently altruistic
acts such as:
a. Blood donation
b. Donating to charity
c. Rescuing unrelated individuals
d. Sacrificing their lives for moral or ethical
principles
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II. Reciprocal Altruism
 Proposed byTriver in 1971
 Natural selection may creates psychological
mechanisms designed to deliver benefited
even to non relatives, provided that such
actions lead to reciprocal beneficial actions in
the future.
e.g. People should be willing to forgive the
theft of valuables provided that the thief
returns a sum of money which is much more
than the value of stolen items.
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Contd...
 A social expectation in which we feel
pressured to help others if they have already
done something for us.
 E.g. If your friend loaned you money few
weeks ago, you will probably feel reciprocate
when he asks for loan of 1000
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Conditions for reciprocal Altruism
1. Individuals must associate for long-enough
periods of time to develop reciprocal
interactions
2. The likelihood of one individual performing
some social exchange with another should
be predicted on the basis of their past
associations.
3. The roles of giver and receiver should
reverse at least once
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ALTRUISM

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