Alter-altruism

Abstract

The paper contains evidence that within a traditional concept of altruism representations of two essentially different types of non.egoistic aims and behaviors are not differentiated. The first type supposes a general humanistic aim to help other people without their special differentiation. The second type supposes that a subject while ignoring his own interests helps another subject in a particular way - by doing damage to his rivals. The concept «alternative altruism», or «alter.altruism» is proposed for the latter type of attitude and behavior. The classification of different human activities in a three-dimensional space «cooperation.counteraction-execution/ reflection» is presented. Manifestations of alter.altruism towards «enemies» and «allies» are being described. Moral dilemmas of alter-ltruistic activities are discussed and future research aims are set.

General Information

Journal rubric: Short Reports

For citation: Poddyakov A.N. Alter-altruism. Psychology, 2007. Vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 98–107. (In Russ., аbstr. in Engl.)

Information About the Authors

Aleksander N. Poddyakov, Doctor of Psychology, Professor, Faculty of Psychology, Department of General and Experimental Psychology, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Member of the International Society for Studies of Behaviour Development (ISSBD), Member of the editorial boards of the journals: “Psychology. Journal of the Higher School of Economics", "Researcher/Researcher", "Culture and Psychology", "Mathematical Thinking and Learning", "International Journal of Idiographic Science", Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6793-9985, e-mail: alpod@gol.ru

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