Essays on Batson

In one afternoon when I was sipping coffee in a certain restaurant looking out of the window, a boy seated on the ground on the other side of the road drew my attention. The boy seemed hungry and exhausted, just seated waiting for help. I stood up, got out of the restaurant and approached the boy. The temperatures were not very accommodative and the boy was shivering as the wind blew. The boy was in a tattered t-shirt, very hungry and in an awkward situation. I took him to the restaurant and bought him food and gave him my ...

Western society (and to a lesser extent near-Eastern society as well) has felt the impact of the Classical world for thousands of years. The philosophy and political processes have all made their mark in one way or another, but it is the impact which Classical mythology has had on the world at large which is most well-known (or is at least more visible). From the use of classical imagery in famous paintings and sculptures, to the slightly less salubrious twisting of Greek fertility Gods into representations of Evil, classical mythology and imagery has saturated our culture from almost the ...

For this argument, we choose the stance that humans are not capable of pure altruism. We are all born selfish and being selfless is like acting against once survival. Altruism is just an adaptive feature that human evolve to coexist amicably with fellow species and the environment (Sánchez & Cuesta, 2005). Altruism comes from the Latin word, ‘living for others’. This selfless act is done voluntarily by the person, without any expectation of reward and with no concern for once own wellbeing (Batson, 2014). Even rare saints who are identified as altruistic, are gaining reward in the form of ...

The society has always considered helping and altruism as a characteristic of what human is. But is the main reason that people help the others written in their genes? Or is it influenced by different factors? The research of helping behavior has shown that there are actually multiple reasons of helping behavior. It appears that in numerous cases the societal norms or gratifications become the driving forces of such prosocial behavior as helping the other people. Basically, people choose to help each other for several reasons that include biological drive to help, receiving some kind of reward and social ...

Franz Kafka led a very complex life in the short amount of time he lived. A lot of critics love to make the probably true personal connections between Gregor and Franz in “The Metamorphosis,” but these critics always seem to forget two pertinent facts in addition, the work was first drafted well before he had any symptoms of tuberculosis, and during the beginning of the war, several revisions were made to the work before Kafka released it. The idea that his experience with TB has to do with the book in any way, usually the primary argument of literary ...

Franz Kafka led a very complex life in the short amount of time he lived. A lot of critics love to make the probably true personal connections between Gregor and Franz in “The Metamorphosis,” but these critics always seem to forget two pertinent facts in addition, the work was first drafted well before he had any symptoms of tuberculosis, and during the beginning of the war, several revisions were made to the work before Kafka released it. The idea that his experience with TB has to do with the book in any way, usually the primary argument of literary ...

While the Civil War may have legally ended slavery, remnants of slavery and racial animosity continued to exist, and perhaps still do, in many parts of the country. Even after the passage of the Reconstruction Amendments, which attempted to empower newly freed African American slaves and give them equal rights of citizenship, states managed to find ways to disenfranchise blacks from exercising their newly acquired rights of citizenship. Racial prejudice was especially pervasive in the South. The era of Jim Crow laws, which controlled nearly every aspect of Southern public life, maintained strict separation of whites and blacks (Welke, ...

Altruism is the quality of a person. This quality is diametrically opposite to selfishness. Altruist is not indifferent and ready to help even when he/she does not have any reward in return, and when he/she does not expect any gratitude (Hewstone, Stroebe& Stephenson, 1996).. There are different theories which explain prosocial altruistic behavior, reasons and motives of this behavior, etc. For example, altruism can be explained by the fact that a person who helps other people has some external or internal reward. A businessman can improve the image of his company by doing money donation. In this case, ...