Helping or Altruism

Helping or Altruism:  a motive to increase another’s welfare without conscious regard for one’s self-interests.

            Helping people is a selfless act.  People do it for different reasons but there are some that do not help at all because they fear the consequences that come with helping.  This is a complete opposite of the social-responsibility norm, which are people should help those who need help, without regard to future exchanges.  For example: a California woman dies after the nurse refuses to do CPR.  The nurse’s reason for not giving CPR to the dying woman was because of the retirement home’s policy.  According to the facility, their policy is this, “In the event of a health emergency at this independent living community, our practice is to immediately call emergency medical personnel for assistance and to wait with the individual needing attention until such personnel arrives.”

            The woman talking to the dispatcher said she was a nurse but was told by her boss not to resuscitate the woman.  The dispatcher said that if she could not do the CPR, then as a human being, if there was anybody there willing to help the person and not let her die.  The nurse had responded with a no.  The dispatcher pleaded with the nurse to give the phone to anyone who was willing to help but nothing came of it.  By the time the first responders came, the woman had no pulse and was not breathing. 

            The question remains as to why the nurse would not break policy to resuscitate the dying woman.  Studies show that the numbers of bystanders are what attribute to whether a person will help or not help.  As the number of bystanders increase, bystanders are less likely to notice the incident, less likely to interpret the incident as an emergency and less likely to assume responsibility.  This nurse did not want to assume responsibility of helping the dying woman by giving her CPR.

Myers, D. Social Psychology. 2012. Helping, Chapter 12.  McGraw Hill. New York.