While not entirely deliberate at the time of writing it, the short story entitled, “The Best Cure for Loneliness” (previous post), touches on interesting current issues regarding the evolutionary and psychological basis for altruism. For example, in Cialdini et al. (1997) “Reinterpreting Empathy – Altruism Relationship: When One Into One Equals Oneness”, the authors argue for a non-altruistic (or essentially self-interested) motive for kindness to others that involves the concept “self-other oneness”.
True altruism involves selfless assistance with costs to the helper but no benefit to him/her. Cialdini et al. note prominent researcher, Batson, who argues that “purely altruistic action can occur reliably, provided that it is preceded by a specific psychological state: empathic concern for another” (481).
Cialdini et al. challenge this by presenting the concept of “self-other oneness” which entails a largely self-interested motive, similar to other kinds of self interested motivations, or “egoistic” motivations such as social approval, guilt, or sadness (483).
Cialdini et al describe self-other oneness:
“The notion of a responsive and fluid sense of self offers the provocative possibility that when one takes the perspective of another (either through instructions or feelings of attachment) and vicariously experiences what the other is experiencing, one comes to incorporate the self within the boundaries of the other….What is merged is conceptual, not physical.”
Cialdini et al note that the self-oneness response intensifies on a continuum of increasing attachment: near stranger, acquaintance, a good friend, or a family member (483), saying, “The upshot of this analysis is that close attachments may elevate benevolence not because individuals feel more empathic concern for the close other, but because they feel more at one with the other – that is, because they perceive more of themselves in the other…If people locate more of themselves in the others to whom they are closely attached, then the helping that takes place among such individuals may not be selfless” (483).
The present discussion is not meant to be a scholarly analysis of the Cialdini et al “self-other oneness” category of egoistic kindness and it has only marginal value in illustrating some of the arguments relating to altruism and self-interested motivations for kindness. However, I do present it for the sake of a thought provoking paradox, one which arguably presents a problem in the logic of the Caldini argument.
Thus the story, “The Best Cure for Loneliness”, entails an interesting extension to the notion of “self-other oneness”, in that the characters of the story (who of course share my name!) are the purest (fictional) example of the concept: they are both Hugh Trenchard (note I have not written this story because of a great need to see my name in print (!); the story was modelled on one written by Jorge Luis Borges, in which the writer encounters himself on a park bench).
In the story, the first HT indicates that he cannot be altruistic to the other because he is only concerned about social approval (“no fine looking women or well-suited men nearby”), and only becomes concerned about his counterpart and prepared to engage in an arguably altruistic act when HT (the first) realizes his counterpart is *in fact* himself. In the end, both engage in apparently selfless acts for each other, and indicate they may oscillate between these selfless acts when periods of “impoverishment” befall them.
Along the continuum of self-other attachment, their relationship is at the farthest extreme: far more than family, they are the purest form of oneness: they are in fact each other! If the Cialdini et al analysis is applied, a paradox thus arises: their motivations to assist the other is primarily selfish, and yet they fundamentally assist themselves. Although a paradox of this story, it does present a rhetorical\logical problem for the Caldini argument: if the concept of self-otherness is taken to its farthest extreme, if you assist yourself, then you are simultaneously both fundamentally self-interested and purely altruistic!
In any event, my aim here is not to present a rigorous criticism of the Caldini et al argument. Rather, it is only that I have realized my story entails some interesting elements of the altruism/selfishness debate which I have thought to illustrate a little here.
I leave this for now, perhaps to be revisited another day.
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Cialdini, R., Brown, S. Lewis, B., Luce, C., Neuberg. S. (1997) “Reinterpreting Empathy – Altruism Relationship: When One Into One Equals Oneness”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 73, No. 3, 481-494
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