Thesis
Helping someone is all about inner conviction rather than expecting favor in return. It is all about doing the necessary to save a critical situation. The occurrence of this opportunity is called Altruism, it may also be defined as an activity repaid with an intrinsic reward and extrinsic gain. This is related to role taking in the sense that it involves a form of responsibility. In some cases, this exchange may be unfulfilled yet it does not make it any less of an altruistic relationship but does press for the reasons of human behavior.
People tend to help others in a situation where the intrinsic reward and extrinsic gain is expected. For instance, It is the soldier who fallback so she could save a wounded comrade which is translated as the intrinsic gain of loyalty. Then the act of recovering an ally, is expanded as an act of heroism and will be celebrated as extrinsic gain.
Circumstances may not always turn out as to what is observed in the battlefield. In fact, within an unprepared situation, an actual hero may not even be recognized. Role taking is done when a person is compelled by his or her position to act. This is differentiated from altruistic acts that are usually silent and rarely noticed or even celebrated publicly. For an action to qualify as altruism, it has to be prompted by individual instincts and convictions rather than receiving motivation from a third party. In role taking, the person may be recognized for their acts and even applauded publicly. However, being applauded for an action does not always disqualify it from being altruism, as long as it has changed or impacted on somebody’s life, it is worth being accepted. The role taken is to be nonexistent, or inactive.
Altruism is matter of being a part of an exchange. As a part of an unlikely relationships, altruistic behavior can happen between counterintuitive groups. For instance, there were the European Christians housing their Hebrew counterparts during the Second World War. At a time when to harbor a Jew was to be prosecuted like one, the extrinsic value of this relationship is nonexistent.
What a person does is not equal to wholly altruistic behavior. At times when being the hero is the reward, the subtly of not being celebrated can be a stronger one. Sometimes, there may not even be no a hero, only victims. A full-bodied altruism where there are not either extrinsic or intrinsic gains shouldn’t be counted as a deflated theory. In fact, these imperfections should be revered as a starting point for future research. It should be counted as a resounding effect for interpreting motivations, be they slight and counterintuitive.
