Experimental Study: Public Displays of Affection

As a finale to my Social Psychology project, I have decided to do a quasi-experimental study. I’m not sure if quasi-experimental is the right term; the method of data gathering would be naturalistic observation. Either way, the topic of research is ‘Levels of Public Displays of Affection’. I had been debating what the research topic would be for quite some time now, and I had a couple of variations regarding PDA in mind. But each variation I was thinking of (such as gender difference, interaction, type of relationship, etc) all seem to be either to complex or impossible to research one way or another. I discussed my research ideas with my sister who is an excellent source of creativity and information. Together we decided on what would be researched and how. In fact, we became so giddy with excitement about it all that we decided to work together in making the study. We bounced ideas off of each other and we worked together so well that by the end of our crazed idea-making session, we became partners in research; “Sister duo, genius alone but deadlier than any other Social Scientist when together!”, or that’s how I saw it.

So we have already begun to write a proposal for the study, and we have already designed the format we plan to use and how we plan to perform this experiment. So far the plan is to observe the number of PDA behaviors (as we define and categorize them), in 5 minute continual increments in two different settings and two different age groups. One setting is a mall, the other being a bar, and the 2 age groups are those who are appear to be 29 and younger, and those who appear to be 30 and older. We will begin naturalistic observation this week and as soon as we compile all the data, I will give further information.

I felt it would be a good idea to write a post about it because then I could get feedback on what others think of the research, and possibly pointers or ideas. I am open to suggestions, and would love to hear what others think about the experiment.

Altruism: pure or just social exchange and inclusive fitness?

I have been researching a lot on what altruism is, and from what I have read it is quite confusing. The definition of altruism is a helping act that benefits another despite the costs to ourselves. But from the different examples of altruism that we find every day, like opening a door for someone else, or helping a friend or relative out with some money is not truly altruistic. These acts of kindness are of reciprocity (scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours), the kin selection (helping those who have similar genes, such as relatives, same ethnic background, etc), and the social responsibility norm (It’s the right thing to do). The closest thing that comes to it is the social responsibility norm, but that still is not constituted as pure altruism because it is based off of the social learning theory that we learn behaviors (in this case altruistic) from behavioral modeling, that is watching someone else benefit or lose from the act. The more often we watch others perform altruistic behaviors in society, we feel that we have a social responsibility to help people in need because it gains us social approval. We use reciprocal altruism, kin selection, and altruistic norms to identify our helping acts in every day situations as altruistic, even though they are still motivated to benefit ourselves.
There are other models that also explain altruistic behaviors, including the empathy-altruism hypothesis, the empathy joy hypothesis, and the negative-state relief model. The empathy-altruism hypothesis states that when we see someone in need, we put ourselves in their shoes (hence feeling empathy), and then we relieve our feelings of empathy by helping that person out. Though we are not necessarily expecting to be rewarded, we are still relieving that empathic feeling thus gaining from the experience. The empathy joy hypothesis states that we feel joy when we relieve our empathy by helping others, and the gain would therefore be the pleasant feeling of the act. Then there is the negative-state relief model which is much like the empathy-altruism hypothesis, in which we are feeling a negative arousal and therefore feel a need to help those we see in need. It hurts us to see others who are in a worse position when we can help them, and so the gain is the relief we feel.
But what negates the purity of these altruistic models is that in each situation, we still way the costs and benefits of giving. If we are feeling empathic towards someone but the cost to ourselves is more devastating, than we do not see it as worth the risk. The empathy joy hypothesis says that we will feel good after the act, but if the act doesn’t make us feel happy afterwards, it is out of the question. The negative-relief model is a bit trickier, but if the cost of helping will make us equally if not more negative than before the altruistic act, then there is no reason for us to do so.
My personal opinion is that pure altruism is non existent because in one way or another we are being benefited by a good act. People like Ghandi and Mother Teresa to name a few are considered to show pure altruism, but if you think about it, they are performing altruism to gain benefits to their people and religion, therefore gaining benefits to themselves as well. What do you guys think? Are there people out there that help for no reason what so ever?