One of the great philosophical questions revolves around the issue of altruism and kindness.<\/p>\r\n
Why do people do good to others?<\/p>\r\n
Is this out of genuine compassion or is there some ulterior motive? For us as believing Jews, the answer is clear, and it is based on the concept of free choice, whereby a person chooses to be good even if it is not convenient for them, since they believe in 'loving your neighbor as yourself.'.<\/p>\r\n
At the same time, there are quite a few theories that attempt to explain this phenomenon, which encompasses large parts of the human population.<\/p>\r\n
One of the well-known theories explains that it is ultimately a selfish desire that comes to quiet feelings of compassion and mercy (a guilty conscience). Helping reduces unpleasantness and rescues us from our own distress.<\/span><\/p>\r\n A new British study confirms this theory - a theory that does us, humans, no great favor, since according to the study, our entire purpose in charity stems from a purely selfish place.<\/p>\r\n In the experiment, the researchers had a subject dress up as a beggar sitting on a street corner and addressing passersby.<\/p>\r\n But instead of asking them for charity, or help as is customary, the man pulled a 10 or 20 pound bill from his pants pocket and offered it to the people: Take it, buy yourself something with it, he said.<\/p>\r\n The responses were mostly amazing.<\/p>\r\n \""Take your dirty money.".<\/p>\r\n \""I don't need your money.".<\/p>\r\n \""Throw the money away from me, and don't talk to me at all.".<\/p>\r\n True, there were also positive reactions.<\/p>\r\n In one of them, a woman was observed who initially said she didn't have any small change. When she realized that the man was offering her his money, she went down to sit with him on the floor and begged him to buy himself something to eat. She also took a few more dollars out of her purse and brought them to him.<\/p>\r\n The vast majority, on the other hand, as mentioned, contemptuously rejected the offer of help, and for the most part also used unkind words.<\/p>\r\n What is the conclusion?<\/p>\r\n The researchers believe that this behavior proves that our offering of help comes from a distinctly selfish place: a feeling of power and authority, silencing feelings of compassion, and a sense of superiority.<\/p>\r\n This is why when the beggar wanted to offer help, no one helped him, because then there was no congruence between offering help and the natural emotion that he felt offended by a beggar offering him help.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the social experiment conducted in Britain, the experimenter disguised himself as a beggar who approached passersby, and instead of asking them for help, offered them money with which to buy something for themselves. \u2022 What was the people's reaction, and what do the results teach us about the origin of our helping behavior?","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[8739,759,2462,3650,578],"class_list":["post-160427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-95","tag-8739","tag-759","tag-2462","tag-3650","tag-578"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n