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I present a selective history of the evolution of the study of altruism and helping behavior, using a series of questions and answers. Some of the topics covered include the motives for helping, the origins of helping and altruism in evolution and child development, the relationship of organizations to helping, and the psychological and health consequences for the helper. A framework within which to view the current structure of the field is presented, and a challenge is issued for scholars in the areas of social movements and helping behavior to come together to synthesize the two fields.
The 2008 American Sociological Associa- tion meetings marked the 50th anniver- sary of the social psychology section. The year 2008 also marked the 100th anniver- sary of the publication of the first two American books with the words "social psy- chology" in the title. One, "An Introduction to Social Psychology", was written by a psychol- ogist, William McDougall of Harvard and later Duke. The other, "Social Psychology, An Outline and Source Book" was penned by a sociologist, Edward A. Ross, from the University of Wisconsin. This set the stage for what Camic (2008:324) calls "the Janus-faced enterprise" that is social psychology. Both men wrote, broadly viewed, on the topic of this paper.
McDougall was an instinct theorist who in those early days of behaviorism was swimming against the behaviorist stream; Camic (2008:324) refers to his "hollow treatment of 'the social'." He spoke of the maternal instinct and the "tender emotion", which he thought were the bases of our concern for the needs of others: "for from this emotion and its impulse to cherish and protect spring generosity, gratitude, love, pity, true benevolence, and altruistic conduct of every kind; in it they have their main and absolutely essential root, without which they would not be"(McDougall 1908:74).
Ross focused much of his book on the nature of crowds, fads, and riots, and Camic (2008:324) rightly claims that in it '"the psychological' is a cipher"; Ross was by all accounts a socialist. He was fired from Stanford for saying radical things - which was how he ended up at that hotbed of freedom of expression, Wisconsin. He once wrote an essay on the evils of irresponsible financial greed, and late...