Diamond Plummer Wise

Professor Suzanne Ingram

English 1102
2 April 2014
Annotated Bibliography
Hall, John. "10 Ways To Help Others That Will Lead You To Success." Forbes. Forbes
Magazine, 26 May 2013. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
The author John Hall completely focused this blog on helping people to become successful.
Whether it is a friend, close one, relative, spouse etc. The author lists out simple ways just to
make someones day or to build a relationship with this person to continue the association
besides just a hello and good bye gesture. One of the most important tips that were given was
to listen, learn and value things that people hold dear. By doing this, there is a great chance that
when a person who actually needs help you will be able to help them in an area you know that is
best for them. Usually, people help others who do not even need help at the time. Furthermore, I
completely agree with the author in the points he makes about helping people. The author gives
insight to the positive and some negative sides of helping people.
Winerman, Lea. "Helping Others, Helping Ourselves." Http://www.apa.org. American
Psychological Association, 06 Dec. 2006. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
This excerpt explains why people volunteer and how certain programs that helps people
volunteer, can hold on to the volunteers that they still have. I chose this article because it shows
the beauty in helping others. The author actually goes to the personalities of the volunteers and
shoes how and what people feel what the psychological aspect of volunteerism is. It was
puzzling to psychologists why people would spend hours at work during the week and the
weekend, then would take the little spare time that they had to help others. Whether the help
came from certain programs and organizations or community service, psychologists wondered
why people would participate in activities that offered no personal gain. But they came to
discover five different areas that are actually developed when community service or involvement
has taken part in a persons life. These areas consist of values, community concern, esteem
enhancement, understanding and personal development.
Andre, Claire, and Manuel Velasquez. "Ethics and Self-Interest." Ethics and Self-Interest.
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, 2014. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
The authors Andre Claire and Manuel Velasquez changed my perspective and this caused me to
rethink my inquiry question. The authors Claire and Velasquez are two students or professors
from Santa Clara University that have stated (along with psychologists) that there is no such
thing as an act of selflessness or without having some sort of self-interest in what a person may
be doing. For example, if someone were to be walking down the road and they noticed a man
lying on the side of the road with a bloody face and next to a wrecked car, what would that
person do? Help, one would think, call the paramedics or try to revive the man or make sure he
was coherent. But why would this person help? What exactly is the motive of the person? The
person would more than likely help because they want to reduce the distress of the other person.
But that is not always true according to Santa Clara University that the person helped the other
because they wanted to reduce their own distress. Many psychologists offered the explanation
that when people (ourselves) see others in distress we (ourselves) experience the feelings of
distress, such as shock, alarm, worry, or fear. This of course is not a pleasant feeling, and leads to
the emotional arousal that carries us to wanting to increase our own well-being by reducing these
feelings. One of the ways to reach this is by reducing the others distress.
Arson, Elliot, Timothy D. Wilson, and Robin M. Akert. "Prosocial Behavior: Why Do People
Help?" Prosocial Behavior: Why Do People Help? Pearson Education, 2010. Web. 03 Apr.
2014.
The authors Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, and Robin M. Akert discussed the underlying
pro-social behavior of why do people help. They give example called the kin selection which is
the idea that the behaviors that help a genetic relative are favored for survival/passing on
someones genes, but kin share the same genes, so saving a kin member may pass on to
someones own genes. Actual reports and studies show that organisms help more the more
closely another is related to them. Furthermore, another great aspect of why people help are
discussed with learning the social norms. A study showed that those who are best learners of
the societal norms have a competitive advantage. Therefore, people are genetically programmed
to learn social norms and one of these norms happens to be altruism. This is proof that people do
not just act off of selfless-ness alone. There can be other factors such as the societal norms, kin
selection and social exchange.
McDougle, L. M., Greenspan, I. and Handy, F. (2011), Generation green: understanding the
motivations and mechanisms influencing young adults' environmental volunteering. Int. J.
Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., 16: 325341. doi: 10.1002/nvsm.431
The authors Lindsey McDougle, Itay Greenspan and Femida handy for this source focused on
the pro-environmental behavior of young adults and how it affects our altruism when dealing
with the environment. The authors state that environmental volunteerism has been known to
represent a non-activist form of pro0environmental behavior because engaging in environmental
volunteer activities allows individuals ( in this case young adults) to participate in civic actions
with ecological implications. This can be seen as the stepping stone for young adults to want to
help in other ways besides volunteering for the environment. Essentially, volunteerism represents
a unique form of voluntary action wherein the tangible benefits of individuals actions can, be
associated with other forms of volunteerism. It is a good resource to consider because altruism
can apply Mother Nature as well as human beings.

HASKI-LEVENTHAL, D. (2009), Altruism and Volunteerism: The perceptions of altruism in
four disciplines and their impact on the study of volunteerism. Journal for the Theory of Social
Behaviour, 39: 271299. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-5914.2009.00405.x
In this article, the author Debbie Haski-Leventhal discussed how altruism is a product of
socialization. That is, as a child many are taught how to have manners and how to conduct
themselves in ways that appeal to altruist ideals and patterns. Of course, if taught for years and
grown up in this sort of pre-set sociological stance there is a great chance that that child or
children will turn out to be very altruistic. Furthermore, it shows how psychology plays a role if
not the whole role of altruism. In all, the author argued that the ability to help others increases
over a life-time; as children grow older that develop empathy and social responsibility. This all
falls under the developmental psychology. For example, here is a quote from the article,
asserted that altruism develops through learning and parental modeling. Thus, children that
were exposed to altruistic behavior tended to demonstrate such behavior themselves.
Furthermore, the most effective learning of altruism by children is by practice, and therefore
children's participation in the altruistic and voluntary activity of their parents, as well as
volunteering in school, may lead to an earlier development of an altruistic self. This gave a lot
of insight on how altruism has been passed from generation to generation and also how it can be
developed through not only each generation, but psychologically as well.