Microsoft Word Chapter 1 done doc

12.2.5 Kin Selection Theory : 
Helping ourselves by helping people who share our genes.
The Kin Selection Theory (as given by Cialdini Brown Lewis luck & 
Neuberg (Pinker 1997). 
From the evolutionary perspective the main goal of all the 
organism is passing our genes to next generation. Therefore, we 
are more likely to help others to whom we are closely related rather 
than those to whom we are not related. 
Crandall and Kitayama conducted series of studies in 1994.
These studies showed that participants in the study preferred to 
help their close relatives in an emergency situation. Participants 
also preferred to help younger relatives rather than the older 
relatives; Kin selection theory suggests that this is done because 
they had more chances of passing on their genes to the next 
generation. But it is not always true, many a times we help people 
who may not be even distantly related to us. 
This is explained by reciprocal altruism theory which 
suggests that we help people, who are unrelated to us because 
helping is usually reciprocal. Helping others will ultimately benefit 
us as that increases, our chances of survival. 
12.3 PERSONALITY VARIABLES ASSOCIATED WITH 
PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOUR : 
Empathy and altruistic motivation are related to other 
positive characteristic such as sense of well being, achievement 
motivation, sociability and emotional state that is consistently 
positive. 
Empathy is found lower in people who are higher in 
aggressiveness. Similarly, people who score high on 
Machiavellianism tend to be distrustful, cynical, egocentric 
manipulative and controlling. People ranking high on this 
characteristic are less likely to show prosocial behaviour (Mctloskey 
1999), 
People having altruistic personality are more likely to show 
prosocial behaviour. Altruistic personality refers to a combination of 
dispositional variable associated with prosocial behaviour. 

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