THE MAN… lending a helping hand?

http://news.discovery.com/human/billionaire-pledge-income.html

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him whose (Don Marquis)? Empathy is usually credited for generating prosocial behavior, so those who can experience another individual’s emotions should be more likely to help the other individual. Billionaires often lead lives completely different from those who they are pledging money to help. Billionaires are stereotyped as callous businessmen that don’t care about those below them, so why are all these billionaires pledging to give away half of their money to charity? Many theories are used to explain these charitable and prosocial behaviors and each may apply in alternate situations. Egotistic helping refers to the form of assistance where the helper only helps to get something in return. This doesn’t seem like the best explanation behind this huge charitable behavior, because the billionaires will not be paid back by the charities, especially not to the extent to which they are giving. This means that the billionaires could be engaging in altruistic helping which is done without expecting anything in return.

Two theories about giving may best provide the answer to why these billionaires gave such a large amount of money. The first is the negative state hypothesis which states that these billionaires are helping the others in need in order to relieve their own distress. The commercials on TV which show starving kids in Africa try to use this concept to get people to pledge money. Seeing those hungry boys and girls can inspire feelings of guilt and distress, so giving money to the cause can assuage this guilt.

Alternatively the empathy-specific reward hypothesis would suggest that the billionaires are giving money in order to receive social reward which could include praise, honor and pride. These billionaires have worked hard to get where they are in life and many have garnered fame, praise and pride. These massive donations could positively influence public opinion of these people and may be a motivating factor in their decisions to donate. In the end, the fact that giving to others gives us good feelings is very beneficial. There must be powerful forces to keep us from just being selfish, so these motivations work well to make sure prosocial behavior remains a real topic.