Altruism: Research perspectives from Current psychology Essay

Altruism which can also be termed as selflessness is a principle of practice that concerns the welfare of others. This is one of the traditional virtues that were upheld by several cultures, secular views and religious traditions. This is a malleable notion that is understood differently in many disciplines although the common denominator of all the definitions is the ideology of unidirectional helping character.

Within the clinical setting, altruism is a value that nurses as professionals poses. Despite the enormous changes within the society and the ways in which training and education for nurses is delivered, nursing is highly underpinned by the beliefs and values of the profession. Altruism: Research perspectives from Current psychology Essay.

The values that have been evaluated as altruistic include care for others, academic performance and self-control. Altruism is the key characteristic that all nurses and the health professionals are expected to have (Puka, 1994).

The definition of altruism biologically is the behavior that individual poses and increases fitness of another person while at the same time decreasing the fitness of the actor (Pallone, 1999).

In this particular sense, it is totally different from the philosophical perspective whereby an action is only said to be altruistic if it was done with a conscious intention of helping another person. Within the nursing and health care fraternities, there are no restrictions to an altruistic act which is just but an act of helping an individual who as a problem or caring for others (Puka, 1994).

The nursing and healthcare professionals possess the responsibility of being altruistic. This means that as professionals they have an ethical obligation give others what they need without any form of self-interest (Johnson, Larkin, & Saks, 1995). Most nurses who are altruistic will always make decisions totally that are in the best interest of the concerned patient. By being altruistic the nurses and healthcare professionals are being patient advocate, hence they will be practicing good ethics of nursing. During a moral code situation, the adrenaline of the nurses and healthcare professionals and in a life-saving mode. At this particular point they feel good being a nurse who can save the world as an individual, but when things doesn’t go right this particular feeling is put into a test and one keep asking him or herself questions(Johnson, Larkin, & Saks, 1995).

Many new nurses have very hard time while making decisions concerning life and death. In most cases it takes a lot of maturity to get wisdom, knowledge and certitude. Ethics in the healthcare and nursing profession is what it always drives the process of making decisions whether good or bad. Altruism as one of the most critical code of ethics should always be involved in any other decision that is made (Johnson, Larkin, & Saks, 1995).Altruism: Research perspectives from Current psychology Essay.  Nurses are also put in a fix that they have to always respect the cultural beliefs and the values of others. Just because nurses sometimes think they know the right thing to do, does not actually make it totally right. It is altruistic for the nurses and other health care professionals to honor and respect the wishes and beliefs of the patients. It is unfortunate that they decisions that are made by the patients and their families are mainly driven by either grief of total lack of understanding (Puka, 1994).

Conclusion

Altruism as part of ethics practiced by nurses encompasses the interpretation of an individual. It is based totally on the values and morals that individuals possess. Although the Nurse Practice Act have very good guidelines for how individuals should act it does not absolve individuals from making personal decisions concerning the issues at hand.

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References

Pallone, N. J. (1999). Altruism, narcissism, comity: Research perspectives from Current psychology. New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers.

Johnson, T., Larkin, G., & Saks, M. (1995). Health professions and the state in Europe. London: Rutledge.

Bailey, P. A., Carpenter, D. R., & Harrington, P. A. (1999). Integrating community service into nursing education: A guide to service-learning. New York, NY: Springer Pub. Co. Altruism: Research perspectives from Current psychology Essay.

Puka, B. (1994). Reaching out: Caring, altruism, and prosocial behavior. New York: Garland.

Martin L. King once said that “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” Princeton defines “altruism” as the quality of unselfish concern for the welfare of others. Most other dictionaries concur. Nevertheless, I have a problem with accepting the value opposition altruism – egoism, and the reason is that for me the concept of “altruism” is philosophically inconsistent.

Some years ago, the Discovery Channel aired a show about, as they put it, mother nature’s altruist – the prairie dog. Prairie dogs live in colonies. When a predator approaches and a mother prairie dog senses it, instincts tell the rodent, instead of running for its life, to stand still and make a loud squeaking noise. There are two effects: first, the entire colony escapes thanks to this intelligent alarm system, and second, the calling prairie dog attracts the attention of the predator, naturally becoming the actual prey. Evolution has given this species a peculiar mechanism for ensuring their continuation. That is all. No moral judgment, no emotion, and for that matter, no sense of heroism pass through the tiny brain of the prairie dog as it sacrifices itself. That, seemingly, defines the purest, most extreme form of altruism, sticking literally to all dictionary definitions.Altruism: Research perspectives from Current psychology Essay.  However, it is my deep conviction that in contrast to prairie dogs, no human being is capable of performing any form of “selfless concern for others’ welfare” without going through a complex emotional process. This process inevitably involves factors like the motive(s) of a person to act “altruistically”, and the very concept of “motive” by definition is entirely self-centered; it is the intrinsic, isolated personal gain that a person foresees in a future event or action. So, by definition humans are incapable of pure altruism.

To further clarify my point, I will present a comparison between an imaginary altruist extremist and respectively egoist extremist. After all, they both have twenty-four hours in their day. So, what differentiates them? Probably the extreme altruist spends twenty-four hours a day helping others, and perhaps the extreme egoist spends twenty-four hours a day on himself, and, why not, harming others along the way. We can infer then, that the difference between a perfect altruist and a perfect egoist is that they spend their time differently. Nevertheless, their motivation is perfectly identical: to feel good about themselves. This can define anyone’s motivation to act in any way in any given moment of time. Here is the thin line which makes “altruism” partially irrelevant to me: acting in order to improve one’s own feeling about herself is also an exact definition of “egoism”. In a way, every conscious thinking being is a pure egoist. The real difference is what actions one’s egoism triggers.

Thus, I firmly believe that “altruism” is a holographic term, deprived of intrinsic meaning. Rather, I think “altruism” is an artificially coined concept designed to allow moral discerning between different levels and forms of egoism. Altruism: Research perspectives from Current psychology Essay.