Have you heard? " Bad News Sales" and sales big, why you ask, because people are genuinely good, we care about others and their well being and social media is the perfect place to promote bad news. The media does it everyday, generally all the headlines are bad news, it drives our curiosity and our human desire to help others.
The term Altruism is basically the act of selflessness or the concern and welfare of others, helping someone in distress would be an example. Normally it would be in the form of sacrificing time without the expectation of something in return, but there are also times when we may sacrifice something like money or belongings.
Turn on the news, pick up the news paper, log onto any social media news site and the majority of the headlines are aggressive behaviors. Murders, wars, riots, political demonstrations or violence at sporting events, a seemingly endless list of bad news. The reason this is such a common everyday phenomenon is because these organizations use psychology to entice viewers, they know that humans are generally compassionate caring people, our concern for others will psychologically drive our curiosity and keep our attention focused on their site. The longer they can keep you there the more money they make with all the advertising that invades our senses every few minutes.
Most all religions throughout the world promote altruism as an important moral value, but psychologist don't believe true altruism is even possible, because personal gratification is gained from it. But many would argue that personal gratification doesn't qualify as a benefit and generally is disregarded. It's is also considered in some doctrines that individuals are morally obliged to benefit others. Used in this sense would be called egoism and our efforts are primarily to benefit our selves and not others. There are a wide range of views on our motivations toward altruism but with the media and humans in general our own genuine caring and moral concerns for others is a means to fulfill ones own self interest.
Turn on the news, pick up the news paper, log onto any social media news site and the majority of the headlines are aggressive behaviors. Murders, wars, riots, political demonstrations or violence at sporting events, a seemingly endless list of bad news. The reason this is such a common everyday phenomenon is because these organizations use psychology to entice viewers, they know that humans are generally compassionate caring people, our concern for others will psychologically drive our curiosity and keep our attention focused on their site. The longer they can keep you there the more money they make with all the advertising that invades our senses every few minutes.
Most all religions throughout the world promote altruism as an important moral value, but psychologist don't believe true altruism is even possible, because personal gratification is gained from it. But many would argue that personal gratification doesn't qualify as a benefit and generally is disregarded. It's is also considered in some doctrines that individuals are morally obliged to benefit others. Used in this sense would be called egoism and our efforts are primarily to benefit our selves and not others. There are a wide range of views on our motivations toward altruism but with the media and humans in general our own genuine caring and moral concerns for others is a means to fulfill ones own self interest.
Pro-social behavior, being unselfish and helping others is a good thing, but many use it as a means for self promotion.
You would be surprised how easily our minds are influenced with the concept of altruism, and how large organization use it to influence our behaviors. If you looked at any drive to get donors, or volunteers to help a cause they encourage throughout the campaign to help others, adopt healthy habits or take action and help others. Our brains just light up with these ideas, we are wired for altruism even though many times it can be selfish and self fulfilling. It's interesting that men and women both find altruism attractive. People are motivated by altruism, and in it's purest form is a |
Many use it as a means for reciprocity, which is basically the feeling or obligation one feels to return the favor. People feel guilty if they don't return a favor, if you like my page I'll like yours is a common action and people will even get angry when someone doesn't reciprocate their action. All to often social behaviors which appear altruistic turn out to be completely motivated by reciprocity. Reciprocity is so strong that a person will feel obligated to return the favor regardless of whether or not they like the person who sent the request.
Although there are really no social norms which forbid this kind of culpability, there really should be, we all know not to speak a certain way in public or to act a certain way, but sort of excuse all of that online and on social media, nothing seems to be unacceptable. You do have the choice to refuse to watch or reciprocate if you don't want to but sense altruism is such a powerful force it is very difficult to say no. As social beings we learn when and where it's appropriate to discuss certain topics, we've learned through social interactions what clothes are acceptable for different kinds of functions and thus our knowledge about our cultural norms are very well known. Social media is really and unregulated nonverbal place of communication and shared experiences without the concern of actual friendships, hurting someones feelings or taking advantage of their kindness for ones own self interest.
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