The first person that I helped was one of my good friends. She was scheduled to take a test in one of her classes when she got a call from her daughter's school that her daughter was sick and needed to go home. I was with her and offered to go pick up her daughter and watch her until she could finish her testing. I did not really feel rewarded by the behavior. I had plans for the afternoon, which I had to rearrange in order to babysit. While I did not resent babysitting, I felt as if I was obligated to watch her child. The reality is that I would be a horrible best friend if I had an afternoon free and did not watch my friend's child under those circumstances. Therefore, I do not even know that I would qualify this helping as a random act of kindness. Instead, it is one of those reciprocal acts of kindness that really seems to form the underlying basis for human relationships.
The idea that helping loved ones cannot really be classified as a random act of kindness was intensified when I did something nice for my mother. I surprised her by going to the nursery and getting some plants to put in the flowerpots around her house, which is something she does every spring, but had not done this year. She was very pleasantly surprised when she came home and found what I had done. In fact, she was so happy that she insisted on making my favorite dinner for me that night. Being rewarded with my favorite dinner after spending a few dollars on flowers and maybe 30 minutes potting them gave me a tangible personal reward for the behavior.
This experiment made me realize that helping people can make me feel better, but does not always make me feel better. Moreover, it made me realize...
However, I also found out that if I helped a stranger that I later deemed to be undeserving of my help, I would feel an anger that was disproportionate to what I had actually done. For example, I was angry at the two homeless people who were begging because I felt as if they had contributed to their situation, while I would never have felt any type of anger about my family or friends eating some protein bars and drinking a bottle of water.
Furthermore, it made me realize that helping behaviors are not motivated strictly by good feelings. For example, I did not really feel good about helping watch my best friend's child. It was an inconvenience for me that day. Furthermore, I did not get any rewards for watching the child, other than my friend's thanks. However, I also did not resent watching the child; to me that is simply what people do in relationships. I think this helps explain why I did not feel as rewarded helping my mom, even though she is the only person I helped who actually rewarded me for my help. Instead, it makes me think that there is merit to the idea of kin selection and that helping people in kinship groups provides its own reward that is independent of feelings (Kassin et al., 2010). Overall, I felt like all of the helping experiences were somewhat egoistic, but, like I mentioned at the beginning of these reflections, I do not know how much of that feeling is due to the fact that I was compelled to engage in these acts.
References
Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H.R. (2010). Social psychology. Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.
