The society’s position in the XXI century is likely to become egocentric leaving personal values aside. Altruism and empathy are being ousted from our lives. Instead of them a lack of sympathy, help, understanding and passiveness towards other people’s misfortune is noticed. This is especially characteristic of the young generation. Therefore, the question about teenagers’ altruistic behavior arises, i.e. if teenagers tend to provide non-selfish help or support and what the level of their empathy is. There have not been any researches about the expression of teenagers’ empathic behavior carried out so far. Consequently, the relevance of the work is to reveal the present situation and problems related to it. The object of the research ��� the expression of personality’s altruism and empathy’s features of senior students. The aim of the work – to analyze the features of personality’s empathy and altruistic behavior of senior students. In order to achieve the aim the following objectives have been set: 1. to ascertain the nature of expression of senior students’ altruistic behavior; 2. to identify the manifestations of altruistic behavior applying the method of social provocation; 3. to determine the personality’s empathy features of senior students; 4. to identify if the coherence between the empathy of senior students and altruistic behavior exists; 5. to discover if social demographic and educational features influence altruistic behavior and personality’s empathy. In... [to full text]

Thesis (Ph. D.)--George Mason University, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Jan. 22, 2008). Thesis director: Kevin A. McCabe. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Economics. Vita: p. 126. Includes bibliographical references (p. 119-125). Also available in print.

Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2001.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1997. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [95]-104).

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-105).

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on February 24, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. Lawrence Ganong. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Towards developing an applied behavioral technology that treats altruism as the dependent variable of interest, there is a necessity for understanding the contextual conditions under which altruistic behavior is most likely to occur. The purpose of the study was to evaluate how relative contextual conditions affected social discounting. Thirty-six participants were given three social discounting surveys, each survey preceded by a different contextual scenario. In each scenario, either the participant, a hypothetical other, or both the participant and the hypothetical other were in need of money to avoid a negative outcome. The results suggest that there was a significant difference in social discounting across the three contextual conditions F (2, 35) = 34.28., p < 0.0001), where the greatest discounting occurred when participants were exclusively in need. Hyperbolic functions provided a strong fit for each of the conditions (R² = 0.98, R² = 0.98, R² = 0.84, respectively), and the relationships between participant scores in each of the condition was evaluated.

Professionals in the mental health industry often attach a stigma to Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). It is commonly thought of as a frustrating disorder to treat. As a result many professionals avoid dealing with BPD individuals. In an attempt to promote positive treatment outcomes, the aim of the study is to explore how the introduction of altruistic behaviours would affect the outcome of the overall treatment of individuals with BPD. Snowball sampling procedures were implemented. Data were collected through the use of semi-structured interviews with six mental health professionals and analysed through qualitative data processing and thematic analysis procedures. To the researcher’s knowledge, no research has been conducted specifically exploring the relationship between altruistic behaviour and BPD to date. The following superordinate themes emerged: treatment challenges, treatment context, treatment approach, diagnostic challenges, altruism/prosocial influences, and altruism/prosocial behaviour. It is the researcher’s hope that the findings of this study will increase awareness of this possible avenue in the treatment of BPD, so that the results of this study can then be taken to the next level of exploration in research and in clinical practice.

This study examined the effect of same-sex peer models perceived as similar, neutral, or dissimilar on two types of altruistic behaviour in fifth grade children. The dependent variable was altruistic responses, operationally defined as penny donations and volunteering of service time to work on a charitable project. A two-factor design was employed for each experiment in which the three treatment conditions: model-similar, model-neutral, model-dissimilar, and the no-model control group were nested within the sex factor. A total sample of 320 subjects for both experiments was drawn from six public elementary schools in North Burnaby. The research questions for the two experiments were: 1. Does the presence of a model elicit more donations of money and service time for charitable purposes in fifth grade children than no model? 2. Does the similarity shared between the observer and model affect the donations of money and service time for charitable purposes? 3. Are there any sex differences in donating money and service time for charitable purposes? Each subject was interviewed individually by an experimenter who attempted to manipulate through a verbal description the perceptions of a peer-model. Following a brief introduction the subject observed the model play a marble game through which rewards of pennies or five-minute time tokens were dispensed on a pre-determined schedule. The subject then played a game alone and received either money or time tokens which could be contributed by dropping them into a donation can before leaving the experimental room. The no-model control group played the game alone following initial instructions from the experimenter. The data was analyzed by an ANOVA and orthogonal comparisons of the means of the different treatment groups. As hypothesized, a same-sex peer model was more effective in eliciting altruistic responses than no model. The greater the real or assumed similarity between the observer and model the more effective the model was in eliciting penny and service donations. The presence of a model perceived as similar was significantly more effective in eliciting money donations and service time than a model perceived as dissimilar. No sex differences were found in the donations of money or time to work on a charitable project. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate