Psychological Aspects of Help - Essay Example

Motivators that are associated with altruistic behaviors can be compared to a cost-benefit model, which always assumes that people reward helping others against the cost of not helping (Schroeder, 1995). This makes us feel distressed if we fail to act by the underlying moral standards. Therefore, we weigh the cost and opt to relieve our distress by believing that the price always outweighs the cost, or we voluntarily chose not to help and remove ourselves from any situation causing such distress by believing that the cost outweighs the reward. Now, considering the above scenario where there existed a vacant house that I never dreamt of owning, and later one day I walk up and found it occupied by squatters who were homeless. Then this brings about an instance of altruism as discussed above. Thus, before deciding whether to evict the squatters by purchasing the home through sheriff’s sale or leaving them to own the home, I need to access the cost as well as benefits attributable to either of the choices. For instance, the major benefit that I would obtain from allowing the family to own the home is complying with the underlying moral standards in society. Here, my benefits outweigh the foregone cost of owning the home. On the other hand, if I decide to evict them, this will be against my personal conscious and will the intern be more costly despite realizing my dream. Thus, I would consider leaving the family to occupy, keeping in mind that “the more I help the more I will be blessed”.