Why does everyone help when disaster strikes? - Compassion and kindness

Of course the answer given is compassion and kindness. Most people are moved into action by a need to help others who suffer, and this impetus is chalked down to caring hearts. But, according to a psychology professor, Art Markman from the University of Texas, the true motivation might actually be more selfish than altruistic.

Faced with their own mortality when their regular routine, upon which they depend for stability, is disrupted, human beings seek to bolster their self-esteem by way of promoting certain beliefs programmed by their culture. This is called the terror management theory. The release of anxiety caused by the unbalancing of our normal lives becomes assuaged once we start giving assistance. Professor Markman describes this as our brain's 'automatic reaction', a sort of base impulse necessary for the healing processes of the witnesses of major catastrophe.

As stringent as this explanation is, veering away from the far more likable explanation that human beings are just intrinsically compassionate and give aid because they are kind, it looks a more valid point when one considers how far-away tragedies, or those that don't get widely publicized seem to have a desensitizing affect on people. Being disconnected from a disaster like a mud slide in a far-off country doesn't have the same affect on the masses as an earthquake in the same hemisphere does.

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